County Panel to Consider Proposal for Land Swaps : Development: Hoping to prevent urban sprawl, Supervisors VanderKolk and Flynn favor new rules for cities annexing property outside their boundaries.

By TINA DAUNT

Sept. 24, 1992 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

A Ventura County planning board is considering a proposal that would make it more difficult for the county’s 10 cities to annex land for development outside their boundaries.

Members of the Local Agency Formation Commission--a five-member county panel that regulates city boundary changes--voted Wednesday to formulate a plan that would require cities to donate land for open space to the county in exchange for annexing property outside their limits.

Supervisor Maria E. VanderKolk, a member of LAFCO, said the agency needs to strengthen its controls on the cities’ growth in the wake of Simi Valley’s Whiteface development project. The city has annexed about 1,800 acres of county land for the project, a move some LAFCO members said they felt powerless to stop.

After the LAFCO decision on the Simi Valley project in June, VanderKolk and Supervisor John K. Flynn, another LAFCO member, said they wanted the commission to adopt a land-swap policy to protect the county from the kind of urban sprawl that has swept across Los Angeles and Orange counties. The agency is set to take a final vote on the plan in November.

“We need to have our policies very, very clear,” VanderKolk said. “The cities need to know exactly what (the boundaries) are. If they step out of them, they are going to need to do something like a land exchange.”

In addition, Flynn said the cities should be required to consult with agency members even before beginning lengthy environmental reviews on developments outside their spheres of influence.

By the time Simi Valley officials came to LAFCO to annex the land for the Whiteface development, Flynn said, he felt he could not vote against the project because so much time and money had been invested.

The Whiteface plan calls for the construction of 1,500 single-family houses, three golf courses and a 1,000-acre park on undeveloped land between Tapo Canyon and Erringer roads.

“We need to be involved early on,” Flynn said. “We would like to tell the cities that we want them to consider returning to the unincorporated area 500 acres if they want to annex 1,000 acres.

“If we don’t do this, we are going to end up with congestion, urban sprawl--all the problems that counties to the south of us ended up with because they did not have good guidelines.”

LAFCO member and Port Hueneme Councilman Dorill Wright said he agrees that the agency should clarify its policies, but said he is against requiring all cities that want to annex land to make a swap.

“It should be handled on a case-by-case basis,” he said.

So far, Flynn and VanderKolk’s proposal is receiving an icy response from city officials.

“We don’t have any land to trade,” said Camarillo Planning Director Matthew A. (Tony) Boden.

Ojai Councilwoman Nina Shelley agreed.

“I think it is very limiting for small cities such as Ojai. I don’t see how small cities could do anything but forever remain very small.”

Simi Valley Mayor Gregory Stratton said he believes the cities have maintained the open space within their jurisdictions much better than the county. He pointed to the large housing projects in the Santa Rosa Valley and at Lake Sherwood as examples of how the county has failed to control development.

“I feel much safer with the open space in the hands of the city than in the hands of the county,” Stratton said.

But Flynn disagreed.

“I think the county has done pretty well,” he said. “It sounds like the mayor is very sensitive about this issue, and he well should be. They annexed too many acres at one time.”