Northeast Passage : Oxnard: A developer envisions homes, businesses and parks on agricultural land. The Planning Commission gets its first look today.

The sprawling patch of farmland is broken only by an old barn and a windrow of cypress trees that tower above a sea of budding strawberry plants.

Kevin Bernzott, head of the Oxnard-based developer McGaelic Group, looks at these row crops on Oxnard’s northeast side and envisions an expansive collection of houses and parks and schools in their place.

He sees a development, one of the largest in city history, that will create jobs and provide roads and other public improvements for the rapidly growing areas to the north and the east.

The Oxnard Planning Commission is scheduled to take its first look at this vision at a public hearing at 7 p.m. today.

“The partners in the McGaelic Group continue to farm well over 1,000 acres in Ventura County, and a lot of that will remain farmland over my lifetime,” said Bernzott, who represents the owners of nearly one-quarter of the 856-acre agricultural island in question. “But the landowners in this particular area realized if they didn’t get together and cooperate, it would be unlikely that anything would ever happen there.”

What has happened is called the Northeast Community, a massive development proposed for what is mostly unincorporated farmland between two established neighborhoods east of Oxnard Boulevard.

The project is expected to create 7,000 jobs, according to a preliminary environmental analysis, but would worsen noise, air pollution and traffic problems. It would include 36 acres of business parks and 20 acres of office buildings, to be constructed in five phases over 25 years.

It would add four schools, 3,000 housing units and 9,500 residents to an area now mostly made up of strawberry fields and cabbage patches.

The project is still in the early planning stages, and construction is not expected to begin until at least 1994. But the massive development is already drawing criticism from some quarters.

Leaders of the two neighborhoods that sandwich the proposed development--La Colonia and Rio Lindo--raise questions about how their communities will be affected by the projected influx of people and traffic congestion.

And environmentalists decry the loss of agriculture in a county learning to live with a dwindling supply of prime farmland.

“That development is a bad idea,” said Cynthia Leake, vice president of the Environmental Coalition of Ventura County. “Those developers don’t care. They are going to be long gone and the agricultural land is going to go with them.”

In this case, landowners say they simply are building on an unincorporated island surrounded by city land. They argue that this plot is next in line to be annexed by Oxnard.

About 10 trusts and partnerships own the project area, which is roughly bounded by Oxnard Boulevard on the west, Gonzales Road on the north, Graves Avenue on the east and Camino de la Raza on the south.

“It is much better planning to develop an infill project like this one than developing out in the agricultural areas in the northwest,” said Steve Boggs, vice president and director of operations for Standard Pacific, an Oxnard developer that owns about 50 acres in the project area.

Area landowners got together about four years ago and started mapping out the project.

Oxnard officials designated the site for development two years ago when they adopted the city’s updated General Plan, a blueprint for future development in Oxnard.

Since then, the new St. John’s Regional Medical Center has been built in the area, at the corner of Rose Avenue and Gonzales Road. Plans call for the construction of a high school, a junior high school and two elementary schools.

Boggs said the development would give the city an opportunity to shore up its low-income housing stock and a place where Oxnard residents can live that’s near where they work.

“In the long run,” he said, “this project is going to be of real benefit to the city.”

But the proposed development has left a poor initial impression with some of its neighbors.

A Planning Commission meeting to outline the project to the community was postponed earlier this month after planners failed to send environmental-impact reports to presidents of the La Colonia and Rio Lindo neighborhood councils.

“If there is going to be change, the city should at least share the information,” said La Colonia Neighborhood Council President Carlos Aguilera. “They’re not asking us anything. They are keeping us out of the loop again.”

And Eleanor Branthoover, who heads the Rio Lindo council, said it seems as if her neighborhood has been cut out of the planning process. She questions if planners realize the impact the Northeast Community will have on surrounding neighborhoods.

“I don’t know how much more this area can take,” said Branthoover, noting that a handful of large commercial projects have been approved in the city’s northeastern area. “Our backs are up against the wall.”

But she said she has little hope of preserving what little rural character her area has left.

“We hate to see any more agricultural land being lost,” she said. “That’s a nice field, and I hate to see them put it under asphalt.”

Ventura County loses about 1,500 acres of farmland each year, said Earl McPhail, the county’s agricultural commissioner.

He said he is worried about the cumulative impact that it and other projects will have on an industry that generates nearly $1 billion a year.

“We have to understand that what we take out of production, we will never replace,” McPhail said. “In the big picture, if you just keep whittling away at farmland, pretty soon there’s nothing left.”

Still, at least one environmentalist has accepted the development of that land and is saving herself for a better fight.

“You hate to lose productive farmland, you really do, and you hate to lose it anywhere, “ said Jean Harris, president of the Oxnard elementary school board, which stands to gain two schools from the project. “But I’ve really resolved this issue in my mind. It’s not like the owners of this land want to continue farming.”

Proposed Development in Oxnard The Northeast Community is planned for 856 acres and would add four schools, 3,000 housing unitsand 9,500 residents to an area now mostly made of strawberry fields and cabbage patches.