City-wide Chain Store Ban Sought

Planners look at excluding formula
stores from new historic district

By Nao Braverman
With almost half of Ojai’s planning commissioners on their side, a handful of Ojai residents asked the city staff to broaden their recommended chain store ordinance to apply to all businesses within the entire city limits at Wednesday night’s Planning Commission meeting.
“I think of the ‘Y’ as the true gateway to Ojai and if the buildings from there leading into town were populated with chain stores, it would ruin that experience of coming into Ojai,” said local resident Leslie Davis.
In order to protect themselves from litigation, the city staff suggested prohibiting chain stores from the recently established Historic Commercial District, a central portion of the entire city, which runs roughly from Cañada Street to Drown Street along Ojai Avenue and from Aliso Street to Topa Topa Street. The area excludes the “Y” intersection and most of Ojai’s East End.
The problem with prohibiting chains from the entire city is that it’s hard for staff to see how one can argue that formula business would have a different impact than privately owned business on a citywide basis, said Kersnar.
“We believe that you can say it has an impact within a certain district that has a character that is not formula business based. It’s harder to make that argument when you apply it citywide because there are areas within the city where the dominance of formula businesses are evident,” he said. “That is not the case with the Historic Commercial District.”
Still some residents raised the concern that prohibiting chains from a certain area within the city might give a green light to chain store owners looking to set up shop within the city just outside of the prohibited area.
Planning Commissioners Cortus Koehler, Tucker Adams and Troy Becker agreed that the prohibition boundary should be wider.
City planner Katrina Schmidt offered that a combination of measures could be used to keep chains away from the city. While a prohibition on chains in the new Historic Commercial District could keep chains outside of that central area, tighter regulatory measures in the Planning Department could at least discourage formula businesses that would have to make a number of changes in order to open in other areas of the city.
Koehler agreed.
“I think we should make it a complex matrix for formula retail owners that makes it so difficult to enter into the application process that they never come out, “ his comment was followed by applause from attendants.
Other commissioners, less familiar with the ongoing discussion on the issue of chain stores disagreed.
“I think we have a lot of regulations in place that regulate the design of things and I have confidence in that process,” said Planning Commissioner John Mirk. “ I really question whether wether we need to do anything about this issue at all.”
Planning Commissioner Susan Weaver, though supportive of the staff recommendation was concerned that eliminating chain stores would not necessarily benefit local residents though it might attract tourists.
“I’m concerned that local residents are going to need to leave town in order to by things they need,” she said.
Kenley Neufeld, author of a ballot initiative that prohibits chain stores from the entire city and has gained the support of at least 600 registered voters, said he would wait to see if he could come to a compromise with the city before submitting his initiative, due in October.
“It seems like the Planning Commission needs more time to consider the issue, though the City Council has already had a lot of time to look at it,” he said,
City staff will return to the Planning Commission with a recommended ordinance to regulate formula retail on August 1. If it is approved by planning commissioners it will go to council for a first reading on Aug. 14, and considered for approval on Aug. 28. If approved, the ordinance could become effective by Sept. 28.
If Neufeld’s initiative goes to ballot and gets the popular vote it will overwrite any city ordinance.
Scott Eicher, executive director of the Ojai Valley Chamber of Commerce raised the concern that while a city ordinance could be amended, a citizen’s initiative would have to go to ballot each time it was changed.
“That could be complicated and expensive,” he said.
In other Planning Commission news, the commission reviewed a plan for the remodel of a former gas station on 110 West Ojai Avenue. The property owner, Arnold Meyerstein, is planning to remodel the property and lease it as an office space. Planning commissioner suggested some aesthetic changes to the proposed windows on the property, but were pleased to see it being improved.
Also, the Humane Society of Ventura is requesting to install a prefabricated building to be used as a caretaker’s unit and a relocation of their current spay and neuter clinic.
Staff raised some concerns about previous noise complaints from Humane Society neighbors but Mirk suggested a wait and see approach as the Humane Society is a humanitarian organization and and certainly an asset to the community.