Legal Costs Will Outweigh Redesign Costs

This story needs to be told because it is not the same story we have come to expect lately in Ventura: "Neighborhoods bullied by government pushing high buildings into their views and through their residential neighborhoods."

The Foothill Neighbors are putting up the money and have raised the political will to fight the Ventura County Medical Center to stop the building of a 91-foot building intruding right through their viewsheds. And they have a good chance of winning.

The Foothill Neighbors are composed of the neighborhoods surrounding the 43-acre Ventura County Medical Center. These folks are focused and are putting on the gloves, meeting with each other, with lawyers, with supervisors, with City Council members and they are writing checks — big checks. They smell something wrong in the process. And they could be right.

As the New Urbanist movement shoves high-rise buildings into residential areas and tells the residents to take their medicine, these folks are refusing to take it.

According to neighbor John Brooks, a 90-foot pile driver put on the site two weeks ago was their only notice that a 90-foot building was planned to replace their island views. The last notice was 14 years ago and they didn't live there. Nothing was disclosed in their real-estate purchases and Realtors were completely unaware.

Neighborhood activist Heather Christie says taking the sun, the views of the oceans and hillsides removes the desirability of their neighborhoods and will substantially decrease the value of their properties and the quality of their lives.

David Choate planned to sell his home in order to retire in two years, and his property's decrease in value may change his life substantially.

Jackie Moran, neighborhood leader, is a Realtor and her husband is a builder. They know the game and they know this building is just a precedent for what's ahead. They foresee acres and acres of 90-foot buildings in their future if they don't stop it now.

Their district supervisor, Steve Bennett, laments that the previous Board of Supervisors approved the project 14 years ago. But, in 2005, he left the neighborhoods out of the process and approved myriad changes that included moving the building to a more view-intrusive location. The changes he approved did not include lowering the height of the building, which was the major objection in 1994. The 2005 addendum to the 14-year-old environmental impact report, that he approved, allowed the VCMC to skip giving notice to the neighborhoods.

The Foothill Neighbors are mystified by the fact that Bennett did not recommend VCMC meet with the neighbors when the 2005 changes were made.

The New Urbanist soundbite is: "If you can't go out, then you must go up." In this case, however, the VCMC, can easily go out. It has a largely undeveloped 43-acre campus. It can double the footprint and bring the building down by half.

Much has changed in 14 years, and the cumulative impacts of those changes are substantial. It would seem this, on its own, would call for a new EIR. But there are more reasons beyond all the changes in the plans and site location. The Gould House, a historic home on the National Register, would now also have its ocean views wiped out — another big legal no-no.

The neighborhoods support hospital expansion and offered to compromise and collaborate with VCMC, to no avail. They were told the deal was done. Well, now it can come undone. The legal costs would far outweigh the costs of redesign.

The state funding does not mandate that the design cannot be changed. The medical center would be smart just to change the design, as it has before. Unfortunately, government agencies have their legal costs borne by the taxpayers, and don't feel the pain as individuals.

This is a case of eminent domain taking the skies above us. Will the county reimburse residents for the loss of their property values? But what about the quality of their lives and character of their neighborhoods? There's no MasterCard for that.

— Camille Harris of Ventura is president of Ventura Citizens Organization for Responsible Development, http://www.vcord.org.

07/02/2008