Ventura County Star
May 18, 2008

Santa Paula voters have faced a series of contentious and divisive land-use votes the last two years.

In 2007, they voted to bring 6,578 acres of Adams Canyon on the city's west end into the city urban restriction boundary, allowing a maximum of 495 homes. In 2006, they rejected a plan for 2,155 homes in nearby Fagan Canyon.

All the while, for the past five years, the city's founding company, Limoneira, has been collecting public input and crafting the best development proposal of them all — for 501 acres at the eastern edge of Santa Paula.

The Star recommends a yes vote on Measure G in Santa Paula, which extends the city's urban restriction boundary from Santa Paula Creek east to Haun Creek. The Santa Paula City Council and Planning Commission have unanimously endorsed the measure.

Open space, parkland, office/retail space

The so-called East Area One is bounded on the east by Haun Creek, on the west by Santa Paula Creek and on the south by Highway 126. That is the site of the Teague-McKevett Ranch at Hallock Drive and Highway 126, for which 1,500 homes are planned in a development that includes 220 acres of open space, 89 acres of active parkland, 210,000 square feet of office/retail and 150,000 square feet of light industrial.

Traffic impacts to Santa Paula are few as the development abuts Highway 126.

It is to Limoneira Co.'s credit that there is no organized opposition to Measure G. The company, which cultivates 7,000 acres — about 4,000 of them in Ventura County — had its start in Santa Paula in 1893, founded by Wallace L. Hardison and Nathan W. Blanchard. Over the years, it merged with other agricultural enterprises and several of the city's founding families' descendants still have a stake in the company.

The Teague-McKevett Ranch was purchased by C.C. Teague and Charles McKevett in 1908. It joined with Limoneira in 1992.

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