Top Ventura Booster Is Heeding the Lure of Less Expensive Pastures

Joe McClure’s job was to lure businesses to Ventura County by portraying it as a great place to raise a family.

His marketing campaign focused on the county’s reputation for good schools, safe neighborhoods, beautiful weather and uncrowded beaches. “Ventura County: For your life’s work,” went the pitch.

But now the head of the county’s Economic Development Collaborative is taking his large family--including eight children--and heading to Montana. Try as they might, he and his wife have found they can no longer afford the California dream.

Although their family is larger than most, the couple also bring home more money than the average Ventura County family. The median household income countywide is $68,500. McClure makes $85,000, and his wife makes $50,000 as an accountant.

But with McClure’s mother-in-law, a full-time nanny and the kids under one roof, they’ve outgrown the four-bedroom house they bought three years ago in Simi Valley for $215,000. Housing prices have since climbed.

The type of house the McClures own now would cost about $160,000 in Billings, McClure said. And he’s seen a pretty six-bedroom house on half an acre in a prestigious Billings neighborhood for $230,000. He put that same house at $450,000 in Simi Valley and $600,000 in Thousand Oaks.

“I’m a poster child for affordable housing,” McClure said Wednesday at his office in Camarillo. “In the corporate world, my salary range is mid-management. And that’s the problem. [Many companies] can’t recruit people here because they can’t live anywhere.”

The high cost of housing is not the only reason McClure is headed out of state. He accepted a post as director of the Big Sky Economic Development Authority in Billings. It’s a larger agency with more responsibility. Still, he said, living and housing costs played a significant role.

McClure will take a pay cut of $5,000 a year, but the money should go a lot further. Other families face the same situation as they struggle to find homes they can afford in a tight market.

“He won’t be the last one to leave,” said Area Housing Authority director Doug Tapking, who has been urging cities for years to encourage more affordable housing construction.

Last year, the Ventura County Economic Development Assn. surveyed 104 businesses and found that 54% percent believed the high cost of housing was impairing their ability to recruit employees.

But Harry Preston, a vice president and broker with CB Richard Ellis in Ventura, said housing costs haven’t deterred many businesses he deals with.

“If you’re trying to get someone from the East Coast, forget about it. But as a regional draw, we’re extremely successful. Companies are expanding once they get here. And they wouldn’t be doing that if the housing costs were such a problem.”

McClure said he was able to attract at least four companies through his campaign in the last several months.

“For someone who doesn’t have as many children, it’s perfect,” McClure said of Ventura County. “But for a growing family, it’s difficult.”