Judge Urged to Pull Ballot Measure

Arguing that the measure violates state law, slow-growth advocates urged a judge Friday to strike down an initiative that seeks voter approval to build 1,390 homes on the hillsides overlooking Ventura.

Opponents of the proposed housing project, who filed a lawsuit last month challenging the constitutionality of Measure A, want it pulled from the November ballot.

But backers of the Open 80 Master Plan Act, which was placed on the ballot after a successful petition drive sponsored by the landowners, contend the initiative is legally sound and should go before the voters this fall.

“We believe very strongly that the people should have a right to decide,� said attorney Joel A. Feuer, whose Los Angeles firm represents the landowners.

As proposed, homes concentrated in six clustered areas would be built on undeveloped grazing land north of Foothill Road over the next 20 years. More than 3,000 acres--about 80% of the land--would be preserved as open space. The plan also calls for two new city parks and 25 miles of public trails.

Lawyers squared off on the measure Friday during an hourlong hearing before Ventura County Superior Court Judge Henry J. Walsh and a courtroom crowded with activists and community leaders.

Walsh warned the attorneys to restrict their arguments to the relevant legal issues. “I’m not interested in hearing arguments on whether the hiking trails are good,� he said.

Turning to the petitioners, representing SOAR Inc., Walsh remarked that the legal standard for a pre-election challenge is high, and noted that similar requests have been reviewed--and denied--by him in the past. But SOAR attorney James M. Wagstaffe said the issues in this case are different.

The initiative, backed by the landowners, violates a section of the California Constitution that prohibits citizen-sponsored ballot measures from benefiting any private corporation, Wagstaffe argued.

“The purpose was to prevent private profiteering,� the San Francisco attorney said. “It is a clear violation of [state law].�

But Feuer argued that local rules trump state law in cities, such as Ventura, where voters have passed laws making themselves responsible for land-use decisions.

In the past decade, residents in almost every city in Ventura County have approved strict growth-control laws aimed at curbing urban expansion onto farmland and open space. The laws require voter approval of projects outside urban boundaries.

Ventura voters in 1995 were the first to adopt such guidelines. Last year, residents passed Measure P, putting restrictions on extending city services such as water and sewer into the unincorporated hillsides.

Opponents of Open 80 argue that nowhere in the city charter does it state that local rules will supersede state rules on such issues.

“It is not an easy decision to make,� Wagstaffe told Walsh of SOAR’s request to pull the measure from the ballot. “But it is compelled by the California Constitution.�

Walsh took the matter under submission and is expected to rule next week.