NOTE: I first wrote this blog entry back in March of 2008 and my opinion has not changed. I have, however, gotten to know some of the folks involved with this measure. I think they are well intentioned, but have a measure which has some clear problems, including the overly restrictive 26-foot moratorium, which they themselves have admitted was a mistake.

I also wrote an exhaustive entry back in February on the good work the already-established View Protection Task Force has accomplished toward protecting our views.

In general, I am not a big fan of the ballot initiative process. On the state level, it has been hijacked by special interests who have tied up a good portion of the state's general fund with costly mandates which are difficult to later overturn. These measures have contributed mightily to our state's budget difficulties.

HERE IS A PORTION of my March 2008 entry on what is now known as Ventura's Measure B:

Here in a nutshell is what you'll be voting on: The establishment of a View Resources Board made up of people appointed for the most part by a special interest group, the Ventura Citizens' Organization for Responsible Development (VCORD). This group would then draft restrictions on building heights which would affect approximately 93 percent of the properties in the city.  VCORD was originally set up as a watchdog group to keep buildings from springing up which block views of the hills from the bungalow homes in Midtown.

I called City Attorney Ariel Calonne and asked him to clarify the legalities of the measure. Letting the board of VCORD, a 501 (c)(4) political organization, decide who appoints the View Resources Board violates the City Charter, he said.

"I'm not for or against it," Calonne said of the measure. "I've given an opinion that a lot of it is illegal."

It's like letting the ACLU appoint judges, or letting the AFL-CIO appoint the National Labor Relations Board or ... well, you get the picture.

AND THERE'S MORE. If the initiative passes in 2009, a moratorium restricting building heights to just 26 feet will be put in place for up to 2 years until this board is appointed and drafts a view protection ordinance, with the contents still to be determined.

The ordinance is intended as a General Plan amendment, yet the process completely bypasses legally required review by the Planning Commission. Whatever the board comes up with will eventually be voted on by the City Council. If they vote it down, the measure will go to the voters in a far-off municipal election. If that fails, then what?

To their credit, VCORD has exempted a few business areas such as Downtown, Victoria Ave., and the hospital zone.

If you're looking at your property as an investment, be aware that potential buyers may be casting a wary eye your way. If the measure passes, the city's already established guidelines will then be in limbo and it could be a significant time before you will know what can be built there.

The City Council and a majority of the citizens support protecting public views and the quality of life in Ventura. But this is not the way to do it.

The city attorney's analysis of this measure can be viewed here: Download file

The Community Development Director's analysis of the measure can be found here: Download file

WITH THE POSSIBLE EXCEPTION of our battling state legislators, you couldn't find a group of people with more divergent opinions than Ventura's View Protection Task Force. Thrown together in one room are representatives from each side of the city's pro- and anti-development factions. Yet the group gets along so well that an observer might jokingly wonder if meeting at the police headquarters has something to do with it.

That's not to say it's not a very opinionated group. This 15-member committee is tasked with the nebulous goal of defining exactly what a viewshed is and how to protect it. A passel of new planning terms have been coined since Venturans started fervently worrying about their views. Viewsheds, solar fences, and skypaving are now in the vernacular.

Our city's General Plan spells out in very loose terms that we value our views and access to sunlight from our homes, yet it wasn't until a group of Midtown residents started making a fuss about proposed multi-story infill development along Thompson Boulevard that it became a real issue. Now, many City Council speaker cards later, the council is serious about it. While a ballot initiative pushed by the Ventura Citizens' Organization for Responsible Development to address the issue is slated for this fall, council members who are attempting to complete an overhaul of city planning decided they couldn't wait that long for this issue to be addressed, so the task force was appointed to get a jump start on it.

To explain further, VCORD is seeking to draw up its own view plan, based on input from its own mostly hand-selected citizen's group, a move that our city attorney has already said violates our City Charter. Legal issues plague this initiative. If the council rejects VCORD's plan, it would go to yet another municipal election.

JUDGING FROM THE differing opinions surrounding the issue the night I visited the Task Force meeting, it is not an easy thing, this protection of views, and the focus that night was clearly on Midtown residents and their views. It was not until the end of the meeting that the east and west sides of the city entered the discussion. But for now, the goal just seems to be to protect views as seen from public areas throughout Ventura.

As it turns out, View Protection Task Force Chair Rob Corley said, the group has found that lowering building heights has little to do with protecting many public views. "A 10-foot building blocks just as many views as a 50-foot building. But taller buildings hugging the sidewalk really do cramp views of the hills and ocean."

Solar access has also been a touchy issue with many residents. The night I visited, Town Architects Torti Gallas and Partners ran their first-ever simulation program of how larger buildings at full build-out, following existing planning guidelines with cut-outs in the back, would impact the sunlight filtering into Midtown homes.

AND GUESS WHAT? Because of the way the sun travels in the sky, solar access in most of the city can be protected with some simple calculations and building guidelines, the models showed. Corley estimated the group will only spend perhaps $30,000 of the $110,000 allotted to them for professional services from Torti Gallas.

It would appear that designing buildings with clear setbacks from the sidewalk and cutouts in the back seems to be optimal for protecting flatland views of the ocean and Two Trees. The Task Force will report back with recommendations for adjustments to current planning guidelines some time next month.

But how this information will get incorporated into VCORD's initiative, should it pass, is still undetermined.

"Anybody who buys a house next to a commercial lot has some impacts," Corley said. "Protecting every inch of every lot in the city is unattainable."

It is clear to me that complicated tasks such as this are best left to planning professionals with appropriate citizen input and I hope VCORD takes the current Task Force's recommendations very seriously. But it is also clear that city officials need to better communicate with neighbors about the guidelines for adjacent projects and work harder to allay fears and mistrust.