EFFORTS TO PRESERVE OPEN SPACE GROW; CITIES, SUPERVISORS SUPPORT INITIATIVES TO CONTROL DEVELOPMENT.

Byline: Gloria Gonzales Daily News Staff Writer

While two more cities jumped on the SOAR bandwagon Monday, Supervisors Frank Schillo and John Flynn announced their qualified support of the initiatives designed to preserve agricultural land and open space.

``We've come to a point in our county where development fears have reached a high pitch. People are worried about what the county is going to look like in the 21st century,'' said Schillo, who during a morning news conference with Flynn announced his support of the initiatives. ``In speaking to people in my district, it's clear that they are willing to do something . . . and I'm going to support the initiative(s), but with the caveat that we show how we can pay for the cost of development rights lost in unincorporated areas.''

Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources leaders are working at the county and the city level to pass ballot initiatives that would mandate voter approval before open space and agricultural land could be rezoned for development.

The countywide effort is well under way, with an initiative request already submitted, according to Thousand Oaks Councilwoman Linda Parks, one of the group's leaders.

The cities of Camarillo and Ventura also have submitted initiative requests, and were joined Monday by the cities of Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks, Parks said. After the requests are reviewed by the respective city attorneys, the signature drive to put the initiative on the November ballot will begin in earnest, Parks said.

The county initiative will require 23,000 signatures, while the city drives will require the signatures of 10 percent of the registered voters. If they make the ballot, the initiatives will require 50 percent of the vote to pass.

The county initiative will prevent the rezoning of land in unincorporated areas without voter approval, and the city initiatives will prevent cities from annexing county land for the purpose of ``urbanization,'' Parks said.

``It's a double protection,'' she said. ``An important benefit of having a countywide SOAR . . . is that the ineffective greenbelt agreement between cities and the county will be strengthened by requiring a vote of the people to urbanize.''

Schillo and Flynn agreed to support the county initiative - but on one condition.

``I will only support the SOAR initiative if there is also a ballot measure that allows for a way to pay for development rights of this ag and open space land,'' Schillo wrote in a prepared statement. ``We cannot take property rights away from anyone.''

Some have suggested creating a quarter-cent sales tax, which would go into a trust to purchase land as permanent open space. Schillo said he did not support this option, but that he would recommend that the Ventura County Counsel of Governments form an Open Space Foundation that would review ways to raise funds, and then write the ballot initiative.

SOAR organizers said Monday that they welcomed the supervisors' support, and their attempts to find ways to fund open space. However, Steven Bennett, who is organizing the SOAR effort on the county level, argued that farm owners had no more right to sell agricultural land for the purpose of development than a homeowner has a right to sell his front yard for a business use.

``SOAR does not take anybody's property rights away, if you live in a residential area, you can't build a McDonald's in your front yard because it's not fair to your neighbors,'' Bennett said. ``You would be able to make a lot of money with a McDonald's in your front yard, but you bought the land knowing that it was residential.

``The same is true for agricultural land, it's land zoned and intended for agricultural use, and we should no more pay farmers for not selling such land for development than you would pay your neighbor not to build a McDonald's in the front yard.''