County Drops Rule in Golf Course Project

Ventura County supervisors unanimously approved a request Tuesday by the developer of the Farmont Golf Course in Ojai to remove a provision of its operating permit requiring that it use reclaimed water.

The action clears the way for the Farmont Corp. of Pasadena to move forward with its development, which has been in the planning stages for nearly a decade.

The county Planning Commission had voted earlier to deny the developer’s proposal to use well water, rather than reclaimed water, to maintain its golf course.

But Farmont officials argued successfully before the board that the planned 204-acre golf course would use less well water than what the developer is legally entitled to use on its entire 2,000-acre tract. Farmont has promised to dedicate 1,500 acres of its land to the Ojai Valley Land Conservancy as part of its development agreement.

As designed, the golf course would use about 400 acre-feet of well water each year, Farmont officials said.

At the time the supervisors approved the golf course project in 1993, county policy required that Farmont use reclaimed water for its project by the year 2001. But the county changed its policy six months after the project was approved, giving developers other options.