Oxnard Planners Back Proposed Redevelopment Area

Formation of the city’s fifth--and largest--redevelopment area edged closer Friday, despite concerns about its financial impact on residents and the loss of hundreds of acres of farmland.

After a four-hour hearing that ended early Friday morning, the Oxnard Planning Commission approved the environmental document that is a precursor to the revitalization of more than 2,500 acres of commercial and residential property throughout Oxnard. The City Council is expected to decide whether to approve the redevelopment area in late November or early December.

“This is a project our city needs,” Commissioner Dale Dean said. “There’s minimal, minimal risk to our community.”

Dubbed HERO--Historical Enhancement and Revitalization of Oxnard--the redevelopment project is designed to improve the economic vigor of areas that hopscotch throughout the city. About 10% of the project area is agricultural land, including 218 acres near the Ventura Freeway that in the 1980s was the site of a proposed regional mall. About 41 acres are in unincorporated areas that would have to be annexed to the city.

Property values in the project area rose only 2.3% in the five years ending in 1996, compared with 19% in the city as a whole, consultant Denise Bickerstaff said. Retail vacancy rates are at 36% in the redevelopment area compared with 9% in the rest of Oxnard, she said.

Declining property values, retail sales and rents set up a vicious cycle that contributes to blight, she said.

But opponents, including several members of Oxnard’s grass-roots neighborhood councils, compared redevelopment to a credit card in the hands of government. Redevelopment, the critics charged, will cause Oxnard to pile up debt and lead to higher taxes.

Redevelopment districts are created to allow a portion of the property taxes paid by district residents to be funneled back into the area to improve public and private property.

Project supporters also lauded the fact that redevelopment is likely to lead to higher taxes.

“For me as a homeowner, I would welcome my property taxes to go up,” said Lori Tashima, vice president and manager of Home Savings of America in Oxnard. “That means my house is going to go up in value. . . . Who’s going to pay for the problems we’re going to have in the city if we don’t do this?”

An attorney representing the city of Ventura also repeated an argument originally made earlier this year that questioned how more than 300 acres of agricultural land in the area could be considered blighted.

However, city officials said that while not physically blighted, the agricultural land in question meets the economic definition of blight. And Commissioner Dean said the project would actually prevent urban sprawl by largely targeting already urbanized land for redevelopment.

“We can’t support agricultural land and not support this,” he said. “To say it is not economically blighted because it’s agricultural land is a facetious and illogical argument.”