Strawberry Fields Forever? Not Everywhere

SACRAMENTO — Richard Sybert, Gov. Pete Wilson’s planning director, says he was driving across the Oxnard plain one day and stopped at the perfect metaphor for California’s growth problems.

It was a roadside strawberry stand. “It was harvest time and the strawberries were gorgeous,” he recounted. “I bought a flat and as I stood there I thought about the basic dichotomy of what’s good for me personally and what’s good for California.

“Am I personally better off that this land is being used to grow strawberries? Or would I be better off if there were houses here? That’s a no-brainer. For me, it’s much more advantageous to keep the land open. I enjoy the vista and I love those wonderful strawberries. I’ve got mine--my house, my job, enough money to pay for the strawberries.

“But is the state as a whole better off?” he continued. “I had to think about that.”

Sybert, a rock-ribbed Republican who sees growth not only as inevitable but as “an opportunity for California,” most likely didn’t have to think long. “It’s probably in society’s interest to keep some of the land in open space, but society also has a strong interest in development and building houses,” he said.

“What’s the best state policy? It’s not to pave over the entire Oxnard plain, but it’s not to freeze all the agriculture land in perpetuity either.

“They were great strawberries,” he added.

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Ventura County residents also think these strawberries are great and elect politicians who fight to protect them from developers. People talk proudly of the plain’s eight feet of topsoil, perhaps the richest in the nation. Of California’s total strawberry income, 28% is produced in Ventura County.

Actually, Ventura County retains a love affair with all agriculture, which uses 27% of its land. Elected officials have taken great care to concentrate development within cities and not allow it to leapfrog into farmland. In some cases, they even have protected agriculture within cities.

But land use still ignites controversy there and virtually everywhere in California. The pressures increase as population masses move north from Los Angeles over the Conejo grade into Camarillo and the Oxnard plain, east from the San Francisco Bay Area over Altamont Pass into the Central Valley, and up from Sacramento into the Sierra foothills.

California’s population continues to grow--by 600,000 last year--even if its economy does not: 800,000 jobs lost during the recession. The symptoms are clearly visible: long commutes, congestion and smog, much of it caused by lack of affordable housing, deteriorating schools and inadequate crime protection in cities; vanishing wetlands and woods, and with them fish and wildlife.

It’s all about quality of life--the housing, the jobs, the open space. And the solutions are about politics and power.

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Wilson last week offered his partial solution, a California “strategic growth” plan prepared by a Sybert-led team. The complex proposal tilts toward developers by reducing the ability of environmentalists to fight projects. But it strives to achieve a goal all sides share--more advance certainty about whether a project is doable or the land will remain undeveloped.

If every county was as diligent as Ventura in planning for orderly growth, there would be less demand on the governor and Legislature to produce a statewide plan. But, then again, Wilson probably would propose one anyway. He was an aggressive planner as San Diego’s mayor and had promised a state plan by early 1992, then got bogged down on the budget.

Besides, Wilson’s plan doesn’t agree with everything Ventura County does, such as allowing agriculture preserves within cities. He advocates contiguous developments and without the urban limit lines favored by environmentalists. Where there is leapfrogging, he calls for self-contained new towns that offer jobs as well as housing.

Wilson also proposes using state bond funds to pay half of local government’s infrastructure costs for developments that conform to state guidelines. But many see a contradiction here: In his proposed state budget, the governor takes away $2.6 billion in property tax revenues from local governments. So how can they even afford planning, let alone infrastructure costs?

And what is Sybert’s long-range forecast for the Oxnard strawberries? “Some of them will be gobbled up,” he said. “It’s not inevitable that all will be gobbled up.”

The fight in the state Capitol will be over who does most of the gobbling--developers or motorists enjoying the vista.