Camarillo continues to grow, nears 70K

Annual address includes crime, traffic and budget



BIG PICTURE—Camarillo Mayor Jan McDonald covered a wide variety of topics during the annual State of the City address hosted by the Camarillo Chamber of Commerce at Spanish Hills Country Club on Sept. 22. RICHARD GILLARD/Acorn Newspapers

BIG PICTURE—Camarillo Mayor Jan McDonald covered a wide variety of topics during the annual State of the City address hosted by the Camarillo Chamber of Commerce at Spanish Hills Country Club on Sept. 22. RICHARD GILLARD/Acorn Newspapers

Camarillo is growing. Maybe not to the extent of pre-recession levels when the city was one of the fastest growing in the county, but the increase in housing over the past four years has Camarillo on track to be home to 70,000 people in the near future.

According to a report issued by the state’s Department of Finance earlier this year, Camarillo was the third fastest growing city in Ventura County between January 2016 and January 2017. Its population rose 0.58 percent, from 69,224 in 2016 to 69,623 this year.

That uptick in population was certainly one of the topics touched on in Mayor Jan McDonald’s State of the City address given at Spanish Hills Country Club Sept. 22—she delivered another at City Hall on Monday night.

Housing

From 2014 to 2018, about 2,330 homes are expected to be built in Camarillo, she said.

“This includes 484 single-family homes, 511 townhomes or condos, and 1,334 apartment units,” McDonald said during the luncheon presentation hosted by the Camarillo Chamber of Commerce.

The mayor said about 13 percent of the homes will be for affordable housing. Some of the bigger housing projects include the Springville development, with 223 townhomes, 213 apartments and 216 single-family homes, and the Fairfield development off Lewis Road.

“Located on property that was once home to Imation and 3M, this project will provide 450 apartments, including 24 affordable rental units,” McDonald said of the Fairfield project. “Completion is anticipated in the fall of 2018. Additionally, 87 for-sale townhomes have been approved for this area, to be built in the near future.”

The mayor said the city is working with Walnut, Calif.-based Shea Homes on a project that would bring an active senior community made up of 281 homes to a part of the property owned by St. John’s Seminary on Upland Road. That project is expected to come before the planning commission in early October and the City Council soon after.

Major projects

It’s not just housing that’s being built. McDonald’s 40-minute wide-ranging speech touched on a variety of construction projects across the city.

Notable developments include a proposal to bring two hotels and a conference center to a 10- acre site on the south side of the 101 Freeway at Las Posas Road; the ongoing construction of a 24,000-square-foot multi-tenant industrial building on Mission Oaks Boulevard and plans for six industrial buildings slated to be built in the Mission Oaks area; and the continued $80-million remodel at St. John’s Pleasant Valley Hospital. She also spoke about the progress of two mixeduse developments in Old Town and the next steps for building a $30-million desalination plant near the intersection of Las Posas and Lewis roads.

McDonald said, however, that two major shopping centers—the Selleck industrial center and the AMARA Project—planned for the south side of the 101 off Springville Drive “appear to be in a holding pattern as the developers re-examine their concepts.”

Traffic

In regard to traffic, and the “Camarillo crawl” along the 101, McDonald said the city is talking to Caltrans about bringing on-ramp meters to Lewis Road sometime in 2018.

“The city will be studying the feasibility of adding metering at other on-ramps,” she said. “We are also working with Caltrans and the Ventura County Transportation Commission to study the feasibility of adding auxiliary lanes to relieve congestion.”

Budget

“Financially, we continue to be a strong city,” McDonald said.

The City Council adopted a balanced budget of $126.6 million earlier this year for the city and the Camarillo Sanitation District. She noted the city’s major revenue sources: utility-related charges of $43.1 million, sales tax revenue of $14.5 million, property taxes of $13.8 million and franchise tax fees of $2.7 million.

Crime

McDonald said the city spends about 50 percent of its general fund budget, around $18 million, on contracting with the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office to provide police services to the city.

She pointed to three state laws that officials say have led to an uptick in crime across California, including Camarillo, because the laws decrease jail time (AB 109, passed in 2011), downgrade certain nonviolent crimes from felonies to misdemeanors (Prop. 47, passed in 2014) and provide early release for convicted felons (Prop. 57, passed in 2016).

“In response to these challenges, along with the development of the Springville area, the City Council added two new police resources: a 40-hour patrol position, along with a 40-hour civilian report writer,” the mayor said. “The city recognizes public safety as a top priority, and it is anticipated these added resources will have an immediate positive impact.”

Cmdr. Dave Murray, the city’s police chief, said the addition of more residents will likely increase the department’s workload, such as “calls for service, reports, arrests, etc.”

“The recent addition of a patrol car along with a report writer was a direct result of Camarillo’s ongoing expansion and a reflection of the city continuing to place public safety as a top priority,” the chief said in an email.

Reaction

Martin Daily, a longtime business owner and CEO of the Camarillo Ranch House Foundation, said he thinks “the city has done a fabulous job.” Daily said he was impressed with the mayor’s speech.

“I think our city is one of the best-run cities in the whole county, actually state,” he said.

City Manager Dave Norman was also in attendance. When asked afterward what he thought Camarillo could do to improve in the coming year, he said: “I’ll have to give that some thought. Off the top of my head, I really can’t think of anything.”

The Camarillo Acorn was one of the event sponsors through the Camarillo Chamber. The State of the City address will be replayed during the next several weeks on the community access channel: Channel 10 on Spectrum Cable and Channel 29 on Frontier Fios.