Neighbors Voice Concerns About Buenaventura Mall Expansion : Development: Residents urge city leaders to take steps to minimize the noise and traffic effects of the massive project being proposed.

Armed with suggestions they say would soften the impact of a huge shopping center in their back yard, scores of homeowners around the Buenaventura Mall packed Ventura City Hall and presented their ideas to city leaders.

Nearly 100 residents of the Dunning Street neighborhood west of the shopping center spent three hours Tuesday night detailing what they say needs to be done to shelter their community from thousands of new shoppers.

Developers have proposed a massive expansion of the Buenaventura Mall that would add a second level of shops, a new parking structure and two new anchor stores.

Eileen Riddle, whose father built her family’s Dunning Street home in the 1950s, presented a petition to the Planning Commission that requests a series of design changes aimed at protecting her community.

“A revitalized and upgraded mall will be a good thing for the area,” she said Wednesday. “But our concern is to seal our neighborhood so we can peacefully coexist with the mall.”

Among other things, the residents want a 15-foot sound wall built along Dunning Street to keep out the noise and bustle generated by what would become Ventura County’s largest shopping complex.

They also are requesting that traffic be closed at Central and Ocean avenues to limit access to the west side of the expanded Buenaventura Mall, with pedestrians allowed through the sound wall at Central Avenue.

A barrier also should be erected at Dunning and Main streets to further limit auto traffic, residents say.

“It’s a quaint old neighborhood with a lot of character,” Riddle said. “We don’t want to see it go downhill.”

Buenaventura Mall owners plan to invest $50 million in the complex over the next two years. But the expansion would not be financed without taxpayer support.

The City Council agreed in May to rebate almost $20 million in future sales taxes and waive or defer another $5 million in city fees to help fund the expansion.

But in a legal maneuver to head off a potential lawsuit from owners of The Esplanade mall in Oxnard, the council voted Monday to rescind the agreement, although the tax breaks are still included in a new deal under discussion.

The Esplanade would lose its two largest tenants--Robinsons-May and Sears--if the Buenaventura Mall is expanded. But attorneys for The Esplanade have vowed to fight.

Developer David A. Jones of LaSalle Partners, which owns the Buenaventura Mall, said he was interested to hear the residents’ concerns.

“They had a lot of very valid issues and points that we hope to be able to work through with the Planning Commission and the Design Review Committee,” he said.

Bob Bruce, who designs medical products from his home at Central Avenue and Dunning Street, said he is concerned about plans to build an automotive service center right behind his house.

“That’s a terrible idea,” Bruce said. “I’m surprised they would even propose something like that. It’s literally a stone’s throw from my back yard.”

City planners say that Sears’ plans for an automotive center are new to the mall’s expansion plans, in part because the giant retailer only committed to moving from Oxnard to Ventura late last month.

“It does raise some issues that we will need to look at as we proceed through the process,” said Mark Stephens, senior planner on the expansion proposal. “But for the most part, it directly neighbors another commercial property.”

Former Ventura Mayor Richard Francis, who is working with Dunning Street homeowners, said city leaders have only recently begun working with the residents.

“I am real upset at the city’s general reluctance to include the neighbors’ concerns at an earlier stage,” he said. “I was half a day away from calling the attorney for Oxnard to join forces because we were getting stonewalled.”

Stephens said the expansion plans will continue to be reviewed by city planners before a proposal is submitted to the Planning Commission this fall.