A Smooth Reception for Local CSU Plan

It wasn’t long ago that Handel Evans, president of Ventura County’s fledgling Cal State campus, was peppered with questions from CSU trustees every time he talked about transforming an aging mental hospital into a modern day college campus.

But on Tuesday, appearing before a Cal State University committee on campus development, Evans breezed through a presentation on efforts to convert the former Camarillo State Hospital into the 23rd campus in the CSU system.

Evans told trustees his staff members had met every condition placed on the project when the Cal State governing board agreed last fall to take control of the hospital property.

And he said come July--if the Legislature agrees on a budget and the governor adds his signature--workers can begin turning a number of buildings at the complex into classrooms and offices needed to launch the inaugural phase of the university in January.

Aside from a few stray questions on the curriculum, the trustees offered no comment. The entire matter took about six minutes--exactly what Evans had hoped for.

“That means we’re doing our job,” he said afterward. “I think it’s a good sign. We’ve done what they’ve asked us to do, and we continue to make good progress.”

Indeed, since the 24-member governing board approved the conversion project in September, CSU planners have been hard at work.

In less than eight months, Cal State officials plan to convert the old hospital into the new home for the Ventura campus of Cal State Northridge, the first step toward establishment of a four-year university at the site.

Under that plan, the satellite campus would remain an extension of the Northridge university until it attracts enough students and funding to become a full-fledged campus on its own, to be called Cal State Channel Islands.

Toward that end, CSU planners have been meeting the board’s conditions of approval one by one.

Evans told trustees that two of those conditions were met in January, when Gov. Pete Wilson earmarked $11.3 million for renovation and capital construction at the site, and another $5.2 million for technology, maintenance and other support services.

Also, with the governing board making it clear that the campus would expand only if it generated the cash to make that happen, planners have been hammering out plans for a commercial hub to help the college pay its way.

To help bring that about, Evans told trustees that legislation had been crafted to create a special authority to serve as landlord for the fledgling campus.

The seven-member authority would manage all financial aspects of the 630-acre site, Evans said, raising revenues from property and sales taxes, selling bonds and providing tax incentives to lure businesses to the property.

Next up for trustees, Evans said, will be consideration of an environmental impact report designed to guide the former hospital’s transformation.

A draft of that report was scheduled to be released today, but that was delayed until June 5 to give planners more time to review traffic concerns in the area.

Specifically, Evans said CSU planners can’t complete a traffic study for the campus until the county completes its own study on the level of traffic that would be generated by an 18-hole golf course and 16,000-seat amphitheater proposed nearby.

CSU trustees were supposed to review the environmental report in July, but now that will not occur until September.

But Evans said that is still plenty of time for trustees to give their final blessing to the project and have the campus open for business early next year.

“All we are trying to do is anticipate all of our potential problems ahead of time,” Evans said. “And if it turns out we have a mutual problem, this will give us the opportunity to resolve it and resolve it quickly.”