VENTURA COUNTY (California) STAR

January 30, 2008  

County supervisors set goal for more farmworker housing

By Tony Biasotti STORY TOOLS

The Ventura County Board of Supervisors vowed Tuesday to fight overcrowded and unaffordable housing by encouraging farmworker housing and backyard flats in the unincorporated areas of the county.

Those are two of the main provisions of the latest Housing Element to the County General Plan, which is due for its every-five-years update this year.

The supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to approve a draft version of the Housing Element. It will be submitted to the California Department of Housing and Community Development for review, and it will return to the county for final approval by June 30.

The Housing Element includes a general outline of the county's goals for approving new housing in the 2006-2014 period, as well as an assessment of its performance from 1998 to 2005.

It applies only to the unincorporated areas of the county; each city must complete its own Housing Element.

Most new housing in Ventura County is built in the cities. Of the 26,531 new units to be built by 2014, under the region's state-approved housing plan, more than half must be in the cities of Ventura, Oxnard and Camarillo, and only about 5 percent are allocated for the unincorporated areas.

According to the draft approved Tuesday, the county approved more than enough housing from 1998 to 2005 to meet its state-imposed minimums. However, it did not meet its goals for housing targeted to either the very low end or the upper end of the income scale.

For the 2006-2014 period, the county's target is 1,404 new dwelling units. More than one-third were built in 2006 alone, but there's isn't enough land available to build all of the rest under current zoning rules, said Bruce Smith, a manager in the county Planning Division.

The county's Housing Element aims to meet that goal by making it easier to build both farmworker housing and backyard units.

Both could be achieved by streamlining the permit process, reducing fees and opening more lots to those types of projects, Smith said.

About 50 people, most of them farmworkers and other residents of affordable housing developments, attended the meeting to show their support of the county's plans. Many expressed their gratitude to be living in new, affordable housing.

 Estimates of the number of farmworkers in the county range from 15,000 to 26,000, and most struggle to make their rent in overcrowded, decrepit apartments, Supervisor John Flynn said.

"They still live in garages, they still live in substandard conditions, and that is unacceptable to me," he said. "I take it personally that we're allowing that to continue. It's immoral."

Farmers were also in the audience, and some said they would be happy to build more housing for their workers.

"I don't think this is a revolutionary idea," said Phil McGrath, a farmer in Camarillo. "Growing up in Oxnard, all the farms had farmworker housing. This was normal back then."

If the county cannot find room for enough new homes by 2014, the state could force it to rezone some properties for at least 20 units per acre, Smith said.

Since the county's growth-control ordinances put many areas off limits, that could be difficult, he said. Most projects would probably fall just outside city limits.

"No doubt, several cities will say, No, we don't think that's such a good idea,'" Smith said.