Car Dealers, Activists Optimistic

VENTURA — Environmentalists claimed victory and car dealers were cautiously optimistic Friday about the city reevaluating its plans to extend Olivas Park Drive near the Ventura Auto Mall and shelving a proposal to build a giant levee along the Santa Clara River.

City staff is also recommending that the City Council withdraw its approval of an environmental report on development planned in the area south of the Ventura Freeway, near the Johnson Drive exit.

Both groups expressed mixed emotions about developer John Hofer’s decision to withdraw his application to build a minor league baseball stadium on the celery fields behind the auto mall. The Hofer family owns most of the land on which the auto mall is built, along with celery fields behind the dealerships.

Delaying plans for the 4,500-seat stadium means construction of the controversial levee will be indefinitely postponed and that several needed road improvements near the car dealerships can go forward.

“We are certainly not opposed to baseball. But when you take a levee and try to force a natural river into a smaller area, it dramatically increases velocity and poses a risk to fish swimming upstream,” said Jim Edmonston of California Trout Inc., which appealed the city’s Olivas Park Drive environmental report, calling it misleading and sloppily prepared.

“We are eager to get some attention paid to us after all these years,” said Jack Weber, who runs Weber Motor Co. at the Ventura auto center.

“We are sorry to see Centerplex set aside. We are hopeful the baseball diamond gets resurrected in the next couple of years. But we are grateful the roads are going to go in,” he added.

Hofer released a written statement Thursday afternoon saying that he was withdrawing his baseball stadium application because of an impasse with the city on how much taxpayer money could be used on the project.

City Manager Donna Landeros, who negotiated the stadium deal with Hofer, suggested that city funding for the stadium project be limited to $10.5 million and that the funding issue be put to a public vote, with Hofer Enterprises paying the election costs.

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“The City Council’s action on Oct. 21, 1996, on the stadium, adopting critical deal points, requires significant further study. To comply with these deal points will require a new design and project approach,” said Hofer’s statement.

Extending Olivas Park Drive, making several smaller road improvements and building the Centerplex baseball project were all part of an ambitious plan to improve the area south of the auto mall.

In 1994, the City Council began planning to extend Olivas Park Drive to Johnson Drive. As the environmental impact report was being prepared on that project, John Hofer publicly presented the city with a preliminary stadium plan.

Although Hofer’s Centerplex proposal was still only in the conceptual stages, the possibility of it being built was included in the environmental report. As the Centerplex concept changed--it originally included an aquatics center, golf driving ranges and a raceway--planners had difficulty assessing the potential impacts on the environment.

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Environmentalists spoke out against the final environmental report, challenging it as deceptive because it did not include Centerplex in its title nor adequately analyze the impacts of building the stadium. The levee plan was also blasted because wildlife groups feared its construction would imperil the western steelhead trout.

Shortly after the City Council certified the Olivas Park Drive extension this fall, the city of Oxnard and California Trout Inc. appealed the decision.

So the city’s recommendation that the council decertify the report has been well received.

“I think it’s splendid,” said Carla Bard, former chairwoman of the state Water Resource Control Board who is now an environmentalist for Patagonia. “It’s a victory for everyone--a victory for environmentalists and for the taxpayers of Ventura. I’m glad the city has seen the error of its ways.”

On Friday morning, Landeros used an oversized aerial map while explaining the reasoning behind her staff’s 13-page set of recommendations that include the City Council postponing the levee proposal and withdrawing its approval of the Olivas Park Drive environmental report.

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“No matter what location we chose for the levee, there could have been litigation that bogged the process down,” Landeros said. “We don’t need to do that project now. There is no urgency.”

She called the levee “an albatross around the neck of the whole project,” making it “incredibly complicated.”

Landeros said the city can instead proceed with $2.7 million in street improvements behind the auto mall that received earlier environmental clearance. These include extending Olivas Park Drive and Perkin Avenue so that they connect, linking two ends of Sikorsky Street, and extending Hofer Drive.

Right now, she said, the city just wants to make sure that the auto mall is strengthened. If the council approves the recommendations, those road improvements could be completed by the end of the year, Landeros said.

“That’s going to happen, regardless of whether there is a stadium,” she said.

On Monday night, the City Council is scheduled to decide whether to approve city staff’s recommendations. Until a new application is submitted, the council cannot take further action on the stadium.

Pat Murphy, general manager of Gold Coast Acura, said he is relieved that the smaller road improvements are finally being dealt with. His dealership is surrounded by dead-end streets, and Murphy said out-of-town customers have difficulty finding his dealership even after he gives them detailed instructions by phone.

“The problem is, when you put that big project in with so many other things it can get stalled,” he said. “I’ve been excited about these roads that have been promised for years. But it just seems to be one delay after another.”

With a mixture of frustration and relief, auto dealer Weber summed up the feelings of many tenants at the auto center.

“The roads are well overdue . . . and the access to this area is something only Marco Polo can navigate.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Road Improvements

1. Proposed extension of Olivas Park to Johnson Drive--now shelved

2. Olivas Park Drive extended to Perkin

3. Perkin extended south to Olivas Park

4. Two ends of Sikorsky connected

5. Hofer Drive linked to Sikorsky