County Says Tax Defeat Threatens 21 Projects : Development: Opponents of the hike maintain they were correct in their belief that Measure A would have encouraged growth.

Twenty-one proposed developments in the Santa Rosa and Ojai valleys are in jeopardy because voters rejected funding for road improvements under Measure A, county planners said Wednesday.

Environmentalists say the county’s announcement reveals an important issue they say some officials tried to play down throughout the election: Measure A would have encouraged growth.

“This just affirms our judgment,” said Neil Moyer, an opponent of Measure A, which lost in last week’s election by a 2-1 margin.

According to Ventura County Planning Director Keith A. Turner, the county’s General Plan prohibits development where there are inadequate roads to handle an influx of new residents.

And since the county does not have the funding to improve Santa Rosa Road or California 33, county staff will suggest that officials deny the proposed developments--which would add 370 residential units to the two most rapidly developing areas of the county, he said.

Although the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors still have the option of going against the staff recommendation and approving the projects, such action would be difficult to justify, Turner said.

“Without Measure A, we don’t see any source of money to allow the projects to go forward,” Turner said. The measure, which would have raised the sales tax half a cent, sought $24 million to improve Santa Rosa and Moorpark roads and $30 million to widen California 33.

Throughout the election, officials for the Ventura County Transportation Commission and the state Department of Transportation said the measure would not encourage development. On Wednesday, Mary Travis, project manager of the transportation commission, held fast to that position.

“There are other safeguards, such as air quality measures, that would have stopped the projects,” Travis said.

But Supervisor John Flynn said Wednesday that he agrees with the environmentalists.

“Let’s face it,” Flynn said. “It’s like water. If you don’t have it, you don’t have growth.”

He said he had supported the measure because it would have placed the county in a better position when bidding for state funds to upgrade other roads in the county and to construct the link between the Simi Valley and Moorpark freeways.

But Flynn and Supervisor Maggie Erickson said they will go along with staff recommendations to halt the developments in the Santa Rosa and Ojai valleys if there is not adequate funding to upgrade roads.

“The roads are already overburdened,” Erickson said.

The first nine of the 21 proposed developments are scheduled to go before the County Planning Commission this morning. According to county planners, the projects--which would have added 278 homes on 370 acres in the Santa Rosa Valley, east of Camarillo between Thousand Oaks and Moorpark--seemed headed for approval until Measure A was rejected.

Camarillo officials, who have complained that the developments would have burdened their roads and resources, said they were pleased with the staff recommendation to reject the projects, referred to as the Caston Trust developments.

City Manager William Little said his staff will attend the meeting to encourage the Planning Commission to follow the staff recommendation.

“These proposed developments are just beyond the resources of the area,” Little said.

Whatever the commissioners do, the proposed developments will go before the Board of Supervisors on Dec. 4, Turner said.

He said he did not know when the other projects--which include six more in the Santa Rosa Valley and six in the Ojai Valley--will come up for a vote.

Pete Klaiber, vice president for Hamdan Project Development Corp., which has proposed one of the nine developments in the Santa Rosa Valley, said he had been watching Measure A.

“I think Measure A would have been very helpful,” he said. Without it, he said, developers are in a “wait-and-see” mode.