Groves May Be Sold to Raise Park Funds

City officials say east Ventura residents have waited long enough for a place to play. So they hope to buckle down and build a badly needed park.

On Monday night, the City Council voted unanimously to look for a way to “market, exchange or utilize” 87 acres of city-owned lemon groves at Telegraph Road and Petit Avenue. They also asked city staff to come up with a list of all possible park sites in the area.

City staff had recommended that the city market the property, which is zoned for development of as many as 400 homes.

But city leaders wanted to make clear that the priority in selling the land is to build a park, not rake in fistfuls of cash for the city.

“The only reason we are looking at the 87 acres for housing use is because of parks,” Councilman Ray Di Guilio said. “Not because the city wants to make $13 million.”

As farmland, the orchards are worth about $1.6 million, according to the city. But if houses are built, the value jumps to about $13 million.

The city bought the land in 1994, but there wasn’t enough money to purchase the land and also build a park. There still is not.

So officials have come up with various schemes to try to capitalize on its land. Under one scenario, the city would swap the lemon orchards for a smaller, more centrally located, flatter parcel somewhere else, and use the remaining funds for construction of the park.

But nearby residents say that when they bought their homes in the early 1990s they were told the orchards would remain agricultural land.

When word got out that the property might be developed, residents were so outraged that the issue became the catalyst for the formation of Ventura’s green belt movement, which led to the passage of the Save Our Agricultural Resources initiative in 1995.

The initiative prevents agricultural land from being developed without voter approval.

A yearlong moratorium on building allocations further stalled the process, but with the release of a long-range school facilities plan, the moratorium is likely to be lifted soon.

Sheri Vincent, who helped spearhead the SOAR initiative, supports the idea of an east end park, but fiercely opposes the city’s decision to sell the land with 400 housing allocations.

“The city needs to tread very carefully legally, and be careful about selling housing allotments with those 87 acres,” Vincent said. “We will be watching very carefully.”

Vincent said she hopes the city will sell the property to be used only as agricultural land.

But Di Guilio and many of the other council members see few alternatives to development, if the city is to provide a park on the east end of town.

“We can dream for a long time that there will be a park out there,” Di Guilio said. “But there are no resources. This is a way to generate resources.”