“Laid back,” “vintage,”and “very, very chill” are the values that the Men’s Journal magazine uses to contrast Ventura with stereotypical, wealthy California towns. This reputation is now being endangered. Living spaces in Ventura have been in high demand after the magazine deemed it the number one place to live in the country, and a real estate corporation wants to compensate with a new crop of upscale homes in the hillside.

“Laid back,” “vintage,”and “very, very chill” are the values that the Men’s Journal magazine uses to contrast Ventura with stereotypical, wealthy California towns. This reputation is now being endangered.

Living spaces in Ventura have been in high demand after the magazine deemed it the number one place to live in the country, and a real estate corporation wants to compensate with a new crop of upscale homes in the hillside.

Our small town was awarded for remaining “refreshingly unpolished,” and the possibility of this development, which would further integrate the upper class into the community, serves as a major threat to the environment. It threatens the quirky reputation that makes Ventura unique.

It’s a paradox: Ventura homes are sought after for their “blue collar roots,” but turning the town into a display of trophy homes would destroy this.

Real estate business Regent Properties, founded by Alan Kohl of Kohl’s department stores, has developed a myriad of high-end properties in the Southwest and now has its eye on the open land above Ventura High School.

There’s been previous plans for housing developments in the area, all of which have been voted against or shut down by the Ventura Citizens for Hillside Preservation and SOAR (Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources). Considering the idea has been turned down for over a decade; one can imagine it’s hazardous, but Regent Properties is gold digging for the sought after properties.

Regent Properties is just another corporation, sliding in with goals made out to look as if they benefit the common good when they’re really full of gaping, detrimental holes – plenty of which will put the environment at risk.

Native plants important to ecosystems in the area will be bulldozed, destroying the habitats of local species. The hillside is and should remain home to more than just upper class families, and the 50 feet of fill that will be laid down on top over their habitats will be teetering toward the homes below.

The development would dam natural barrancas and block a prominent storm drain on the hill that segues water to the bottom of the hill during storms. Ventura’s lack of moisture usually leads to the flooding of the drain when any rain actually does roll around, and damming these waterways will be a landslide hazard.

The Ventura City Council has already declared a water shortage emergency. Amidst the severe drought, how can we justify allowing new water hookups that will raise prices for existing customers?

The hillside is at an extreme slope made up mostly of loose dirt and silt and the 50 foot foundation to level out the ground would be in the thick of the most dangerous mudslide zone. With the drain blocked and the already existing mudslide risk, why would we endanger residents in the area with a development that’s likely to tumble down the hill anyway?

Hall Canyon road will be the only way to access the development, further clogging an already dangerous intersections near Ventura High School. Students will be put at risk and traffic will be congested.

Not to mention, “The V,” Ventura’s famous landmark, will be destroyed and covered by the new homes. The V is a monument of our town and removing it truly would catalyze the transformation from a unique beach town to another extension of the urban sprawl.

Regent Properties is looking to build houses to quench a supposed thirst for “estates” that was generated by Men’s Journal, but creating a tract housing development is not the answer.

Another string of large, cookie cutter homes would bestow a certain upscale reputation on Ventura, though its feature characteristic was its lack of polish. We’ve been advertised to potential home buyers as an attractively small city, and cramming these boxes onto the hillside will only nudge our quaint town toward the ledge of aristocracy.

Wealthy families will move in and the grungy, beach town flare that they came seeking will immediately begin to deteriorate. As the upper class begins their occupation of Ventura, more corporations will be established, local businesses will close, the middle class will disintegrate and Ventura’s original beach town culture dies. We’ll have turned into another upper class suburbia.

What’s given Ventura it’s unshaken, independent aptitude is its isolationism. City Council has voted to keep our farmland intact in the past, and it has acted as a buffer zone between us and our neighboring cities. Past the farmland north of Ventura lies Santa Barbara. The rural hills south of us lead to Thousand Oaks. Ventura is unlike either, for both have succumbed to an institutionalized, wealthy society. Both have succumbed to the urban sprawl.

The urban sprawl is the expansion of populations away from cities. All the cities up the coast that branch off of Los Angeles have completed their full metamorphosis into “just another” wealthy beach town. If we let Regent Properties build the estates, it’s setting Ventura up to be “just another” extension of the urban sprawl.

Isolation will be violated and useless over time. The executive homes would perpetuate the urban sprawl. As more identical estates are installed, more of the same higher class of people flock. They’re on the pursuit of someplace “underground” and that’s what we’ve been broadcasted as. Letting the houses be built would truly uproot us.

Ventura is applauded for being the last existing coastal city that hasn’t been overrun with upscale culture, remaining unique. Although Regent Properties’ hillside development seems like a trivial project, it’s a significant shove toward becoming another blandly upper class city.

The development of the hillside is currently just a proposal, but Regent Properties could submit it to the city by this fall. If approved, construction could begin within two years.

The misconception I’d like to quell is the idea that these houses will help our city. Building these homes is contradictory to the entire reasoning of the plan: they want to provide to those who want a “small beach town,”  though the hillside tract will disintegrate the “small beach town” culture. Aside from Ventura’s demographics being on the line, there’s the ever looming danger of natural disaster: landslides, flooding, broken habitats, maybe even extinction.

Since the property lies within city limits, residents don’t get to vote for approval. To help you can join the Neighbors for the Ventura Hillside in their protest against the development, and like them on Facebook to receive updates on the project. Social science teacher and active member of Neighbors for the Ventura Hillside teacher Cherie Eulau says the group plans to conduct a meeting for those who wish to help the cause.

The possible development of the hillside is more than just a hazard to citizens, plants, and animals; it’s physically indicative of the urban sprawl. It perpetuates the ironic paradox of Ventura. Our “blue collar roots” are what makes us attractive, what makes us “laid back,” yet the Regent Properties development would strip us of those values.