Passage of Moorpark SOAR Echoes New Priority

It was the second resounding message in the past two months on growth and development, not only for Moorpark but for Ventura County as a whole.

“Up until now we have been operating under the myth that if we continue to develop everything, we are going to enhance our quality of life,” said county Supervisor John Flynn. “I think people have seen through that and have said there has got to be a better way.”

Flynn was talking about the flurry of growth-control measures recently approved by voters across the county, a movement capped Tuesday when Moorpark residents voted to overturn the City Council’s approval of the largest housing project in city history while adopting land-use controls that will confine growth within the city’s boundaries.

The vote was a clear, resounding statement in favor of open space and the need to halt urban sprawl.

But it was also part of a larger message, one first hammered home by voters countywide in November, that Ventura County residents are ready and willing to take the reins on critical land-use decisions.

“People are saying they are much more interested in smart growth and that the old-fashioned system of sprawl is not the way to go in the current political climate,” said Ventura attorney Richard Francis, a leader in the countywide SOAR movement.

“What we have had is essentially a pyramid scheme where local government says you have to build more residential development in order to provide the services residents demand,” he said. “It becomes a never-ending spiral until you cut it off.”

In Ventura County, voters have chosen to cut off development by approving a revolutionary set of growth controls, the strictest ever adopted in Southern California.

Voters last fall approved a countywide Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources measure that prevents farmland and open space outside cities from being rezoned for development without voter approval. At the same time, voters in Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks, Camarillo and Oxnard adopted complementary SOAR measures blocking development outside their borders.

Now with Moorpark on board, slow-growth activists say the county has reached a turning point on development. From now on, it must be orderly, confined, obedient, not headlong and uncontrolled.

The turning point was foreshadowed in a 1997 Los Angeles Times poll. The poll--the most extensive ever on political attitudes in the county--found that nearly two-thirds of local residents favored slowing growth and limiting development even if it hurt business and cut jobs.

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Indeed, the Moorpark electorate voted against development of the Hidden Creek Ranch project, which would add 3,221 homes to the city and boost its population by a third, even though the project promised tens of millions of dollars in public improvements.

According to the poll, residents in both the newer communities of eastern Ventura County and the older towns of the west said they wanted to halt suburban sprawl across prime farmland and open space.

About half of those polled favored stripping elected officials of control over farmland development and giving it to voters instead.

Now that that has happened, the voters must face the consequences, and endure a period of trial and error as they get used to making major land-use decisions themselves.

On the one hand, the initiatives promise new life to aging business districts and neighborhoods, because cities that can no longer grow outward must turn inward.

At the same time, the SOAR measures have effectively frozen in place current patterns of population and economics. That means elected leaders across the county will have to find ways, other than residential growth, to generate the money necessary to provide public services.

To that end, Ventura-based urban planner and author William Fulton argues that community leaders should find ways to redistribute sales taxes so cities with strong tax bases can help those having a hard time making ends meet.

“I think the real challenge over the next 10 to 20 years is to figure out how the county is going to function economically and socially with the current patterns pretty much frozen in place,” said Fulton, who has monitored the SOAR debate as it has spread across the county and the state.

“We could just ignore that and the problems will fester and pop up in some other way,” he said. “But I think it will be a turning point in how our communities relate to each other.”

UC Santa Barbara economist Mark Schniepp said the passage of SOAR could cause other long-term problems.

Without a steady supply of new housing projects coming on line, he said, home prices could rise until they are out of reach of many county residents.

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There is also some concern that the slow-growth movement could spill over to the business sector, scaring away companies that want to relocate to the county or driving away those currently here and hoping to expand.

“SOAR will cause a diminishment in growth and in economic activity, more so in the future than now,” Schniepp said. “I don’t think most people really think about the long-term economic impacts, particularly in an environment where the economy is strong. But they can come back and bite you in the long run.”

However, SOAR leader Francis said he doesn’t believe SOAR will hurt local economies or drive businesses away. He notes that even with prohibiting development on protected farmland and open space, tens of thousands of new homes are still scheduled to be built within city boundaries over the next two decades.

While the growth-control measures are likely to face legal challenges in coming weeks, Francis said he is confident they will hold up in court. In the meantime, he said he wants the SOAR movement to step back from its political prominence of the past year and become a nonprofit coalition that is available to educate county residents and others about growth-control issues.

Francis said it’s possible SOAR could next find its way to the Santa Clara Valley, where residents in Fillmore and Santa Paula have been asking what it would take to adopt similar measures.

“What we have been able to do is help with the support for essentially home-grown SOAR efforts,” he said. “When and if folks who live in those communities step up and indicate they are sincere about pursuing those efforts, we will certainly be available to help.”