Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Recording in progress.

Good morning. I would like to call to order the Planning Commission meeting of November 20th, 2025. Secretary Lewis, please take roll call. Good morning. Commissioner Boydston here, Commissioner Cushing here. Commissioner Ayala is absent. Vice Chair Sandlin here. Chair. Kesley here. Thank you. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag. Okay. The next item is public comments. Secretary Lewis, did we receive any comments on agenda item on items that are not included on this agenda? Chair Kesley, we did not receive any items that is not appearing on the agenda today. Thank you, Secretary Lewis. The next item is the approval of the minutes for November 18th, 2025. Do we have any discussion or a motion to approve those minutes? Move to approve. Thank you. I'll second. Thank you. We have a motion to approve by Commissioner Bergstrom. A second by Commissioner Cushing. Secretary Lewis, please take roll call. Commissioner Boydston. Yes, Commissioner. Cushing. Yes, vice chair. Sandlin. Yes. Chair. Kesley. Yes. Thank you. The motion carries with four votes. Yes, and one absent. The next

item is item six. A case number PL 13 0101. Applicant is Bill Camarillo. On behalf of Agreement, Inc. the project description. The applicant requests approval of a major modification of conditional use Permit 5001 for the expansion and continued use of a large scale commercial organics processing operation and a soil amendment operation. The project location is 6859 Arnold Road, 1.5 miles south of the intersection of Arnold Road and Hueneme Road in the unincorporated area of Ventura County. At this time, I would like to ask each Planning Commissioner to state on record whether or not he or she has received any oral or written ex-parte communication, or has any other information to disclose regarding this agenda item that is not already contained in the record before us on this matter, please disclose the substance of that information only if that information is not contained in the record before us on this matter. Secretary Lewis, please take roll call. Commissioner Boydston no disclosures. Commissioner Cushing, no disclosures. Vice chair. Sandlin. No. No. Chair. Kesley. No disclosures. Okay, so, case planner John Oquendo, please proceed with your presentation. Yes, I practice your name. Good morning, chair. Members of the Planning Commission and members of the public. My name is John Oquendo, senior planner with the Ventura County Planning Division residential permit section I'm the case planner for item six a the shoreline project, also known as Major Modification to Conditional Use

Permit 5001-1 under planning case PL 13 010. Before getting started. Just a reminder to those participants attending via zoom that the URL URL listed in this slide, or sorry may participate via the URL listed in this slide. Members of the public who wish to speak. You may raise your hand via the raise hand button using the zoom application, and if you're participating via phone, you may press the star key to be queued for item agenda six A. So in terms of the format, we'll start with the project location. We'll move on to the project history and the project description. Some information about the environmental document. And then we'll follow up with the recommended actions. So let's orient you to the site. So the project is located in the unincorporated area of Ventura County abutting the city of Oxnard. You can see the callout in red. The site is addressed as 6859 Arnold Road. It's one and a half miles south of the intersection of Arnold Road and Hueneme Road. The project site is near Ormond Beach, which is located at the terminus of of Arnold Road. The area is characterized by large agricultural lots present, presently used for crop production. The site is also located near a naval base. Ventura County. An active US military installation. In addition to these uses, there are also single dwelling units sparsely located in the vicinity of the project on some of the agricultural lots, and we marked those with those those red dots on the right hand side of the overlay. And you can also see the Naval Base, Ventura County, outlined in red. So the project site consists of

the development of an 11 acre portion of a 19.3868 sorry, 11.44 acre portion of a 19.36 acre property. The lot which constitutes the project site is assigned multiple tax assessor's parcel numbers. The tax or sorry, the apns that constitute the project site are sorry. APN 231004031523100800085 and 231008007. So as you can see from this drawing, the city boundary is marked in that pink color. So the frontage of their property on the right hand side of the screen is is Arnold Road. The city controls Arnold Road from beyond their property, south and north of that it's part of the county roadway network. So it's it's maintained by the county north of their property line. And also there's an additional parcel that's not a part of this application in terms of it's within the city's jurisdiction. They do have a driveway that's would continue to be located on that parcel in the city, has provided comments, which has been added to the record regarding some of their their concerns with the final iteration of the project description. But there really are no options for county only access because Arnold Road is controlled by the City of Oxnard for basically their entire property. So as you can see, the city boundary extends along the frontage of the property at the edge. The applicant has indicated that they would terminate operations on the city parcel, which was historically used based upon an agreement with the previous

property owner and the City of Oxnard. The site is also divided by the coastal zone boundary, so you can see that diagonal line that that goes through the property that's dividing two zones. So the actual cup boundary is located within the 40 designated property that's on the the right hand side of the screen. And then to the to the southwest is coastal agricultural or C-A classification. And that would be within the coastal zone. So uses would be prohibited on that portion of the property. So these were some current site photos. The applicant was nice enough to let me on the property to verify some conditions prior to this meeting. So starting from the left this is the entrance of the facility looking southerly towards the ocean. This photo shows a vacant building remnant from the previous use as a mushroom farm. The second photo from the top is looking North Arnold Road at the facility driveway. So all of this would be within the the the city of Oxnard in terms of the the the road right of way. And then on the bottom left is the open area that's within the coastal zone on their property. They would need to mark that with fencing as a part of the proposal. But they've they've placed some markers on there for indicators for, for county staff. And then on the bottom right is a, a agricultural material being delivered to the site for, for composting. So now we'll cover the project

history and the project description. So from about 1960 to 1992 the project was a mushroom farm which included outdoor composting. As a part of those operations. Based on a review of the building records and historical area imagery, various masonry buildings were located or constructed on site to support the mushroom cultivation and composting operations associated with the mushroom farm. In terms of the, the current use of the property as a composting operation. Again, this relates to the the an existing facility expansion and extension of the the operational term. So the the original permit granted by the county was in May of 1998. The County Planning Commission approved Cup 5001, which authorized the redevelopment of 8.1 acres into Composting and Soil Amendment facility for a period of five years, and then in 2000, the county Planning Director approved a permit adjustment to the Cup for the installation and operation of an office, trailer and truck scale, and then in 2001, planning Director approved another permit adjustment. So that was permit adjustment number two to authorize the demolition of composting bays, as well as various other improvements to the site. This this approval also legalized some some building the use of building remnants on the site. And then in 2003, the county county planning director approved a minor modification to the Cup authorizing the continued operation of the composting facility and allowed for a maximum storage of

10,000yd■!T of green material to be stored and composted on site, and it also increased the Cup area from 8.11 acres to 9.77 acres. This also extended the term of the Cup expiration, and then in 2009, the county planning director approved a third permit adjustment authorizing the continued operation of the facility. So the the project under consideration today, as as I stated before, is a the expansion and continued use of an existing facility. So they would be continuing operations to highlight one of the sort of late submittals. We did receive a comment from the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board, so they did provide a letter stating that they had previously issued a violation for the site that was known to the to planning staff. This was they gave them time to comply. And basically a portion of the improvements required to to remedy that violation are a part of this application. So things like the construction of retention basins, the the application of soil cement, the construction of the road all relate to future compliance. But to, to, to to be formal and to to sort of express the the current project description. So this major modification would effectively be the Cup going forward for the facility. So we did write a project description in the conditions of approval. That project description is as follows. So this would be a conditional use permit to operate a large scale commercial organics processing and soil amendment operations on 11.4 acres, consisting of the processing of wood waste and green material feedstock

into compost for the property located at 6859 Arnold Road. Operational activities include screening, chipping, grinding and storage activities related to the production of compost, compost, feedstocks, chipped and ground materials. The project includes the use of an existing 9275 square foot packing, building, an existing scale and scale house, a portable toilets, mobile grinder, mobile trommel screen and mobile trauma shaker shaker screen a the placement of an 858 square foot open bin, and a 283 square foot storage trailer. The annual facility throughput is 93,000 tons per year, and maximum onsite storage volume of feedstock and compost allowed on site is 12,500yd■!T,o all truck deliveries and employee traffic shall use Hueneme Road to Arnold Road and shall utilize the existing facility entrance at Arnold Road. That's based on a previous project description for the CIP. We just continued that that statement in the the project description. And same with the next statement. So the use of Arnold Roads is prohibited. And then the average heavy duty truck trip estimates for throughput at the facility shall consist of 72 one way trips for. Sorry trips per day for materials transportation for one way trips per day for vendor deliveries, and average employee trips are 29 trips per day, which includes nine full time employees and four seasonal employees. The operation of the commercial organics processing shall be limited to Monday through Saturday, 6 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Soil amendment operations shall be limited to 7 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, and

then 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday. The facility is is closed on Sundays. We also have other items in the project description related to the handling of of the material. One of the aspects of the project description that we we wanted to highlight was the requirement for the annexation of the of a portion of the property into Metropolitan Water District and then one of the member agencies of the Port Hueneme Water Agency, which is a joint powers authority. So that would be, we believe it would be either Port Hueneme or Channel Islands Beach Community Services District. So the maybe if we head back. So a portion of the site is serviced by existing water infrastructure so that there is, you know, a water service to the property already. They are serviced by Port Hueneme Water Agency. Basically that parcel highlighted in yellow is the parcel that would be subject to this annexation. So the way that we wrote the project description and the conditions of approval was to basically, you know, isolate the requirement to annex for that portion that in order to to commence use on, on that portion of the property or formal expansion of the CP boundary, they would need to to annex to to those three entities. That is because that portion of the property, unfortunately, through the history and use, was not included in in those service areas. So Lafco did provide comment on the project that was submitted as a part of the package. We believe that the project as conditioned, and we

did make some edits to the conditions of approval based on those comments. That was the errata memo submitted with the the the planning Commission item. We do believe that those capture the timing, which is complicated and addresses at least, you know, options for moving forward with this this approval. So to kind of summarize what the operational changes. So we're going from the current permitted boundary of 9.77 acres to 11.44 acres. That's the addition of 3.9 acres. The written increase in storage capacity from 10,000yd■T to 12,500yd■!T. That's a changef 2500yd■!T and then an increase n average daily truck trips from the current permitted 72 to 105 average daily trips. That's a total of 33 additional average daily trips. And just a note, I mean, in terms of kind of the basics of composting. So they to to very quickly summarize the facility or the the facility receives material delivered in a commercial collection, vehicles and heavy duty trucks, material loads are inspected and contaminants are removed and they're placed into rows. These rows are inspected over time and contaminants are continuously removed. After that, they would grind the material you know, place them

into open windrow composting. These are sort of basic. Process in terms of where the material is is monitored for moisture and temperature. Biologically activated process where that material is, is turned into to usable compost. So they also handle soil amendments and other materials to create their product. And then they make it available for for bulk sales. The applicant is here. So if there are questions about the the logistics of the the process that they would be probably better to to direct those questions to in terms of the errata to the project description or sorry, the the staff report, we asked the applicant to prepare kind of for for clarity's sake. Add some additional values to the site plan to give you an indication of the project, the portion of the project that's subject to annexation. So basically that's the the blue area that's shown on the plan. The I know it's difficult to distinguish from the lower blue area, but it's that upper blue area. The lower blue area is the retention basin that's required for operation of the facility. So that would be constructed to to meet their water quality requirements with the with the state. So the upper area would be subject to that annexation requirement where they would need to apply with Lafco for annexation to Chicago's metropolitan water. And one of the member agencies of the Port Hueneme Water Agency in order to commence use on that. That back portion, the the kind of key components of the the this conditional use

permit is the the the construction of that road that you can kind of see in, in the blue area. That would be a part of the, the, the basically if we were not to they're not that they're formal phases, but that would be a part of the the implementation of the project. They need to construct that in order to meet their access requirements and also their their storm stormwater requirements. So or the the requirements required by the the Regional Water Quality Control Board. And the orange portion is the portion of the property that's located in the coastal zone. There's you know, there's no use proposed with that property. The the staff report gets into some of the, the the history a little a little bit more detail. So at one point the county county planning did permit the use of that. That property, as you can see in the orange, that's the faded gray. That was because there was a mapping error at the time. This application would formally correct that. So basically reduced their their existing permit boundary from that area. They they aren't allowed to use it. Again. It sits within the coastal zone. It's a function of the basically nonconforming use that's prohibited by the coastal zoning ordinance. And to so the the other kind of big sort of complication and this is is the northern part or the top part of that plan. So that is the the property. It's a separate property that's located within the city's jurisdiction. However, Ackerman is the owner of that site too. So it is private property. It

is theirs, as we discussed in the in the project location, City of Oxnard controls or maintains it's part of City of Oxnard's roadway network south of their their property line. We did receive a comment from the City of Oxnard regarding the the proposed project, I believe, to kind of very quickly summarize, I don't know if they're they're here to participate or if they're on the zoom call to to provide clarification. But some of their concerns relate to existing improvements that we would argue would be incidental to the use of, of private property, the placement of. I don't want to mischaracterize them as site improvements, but I think they identified k-rails and then will washers or shaker plates, you know, at the facility entrance. We believe that those are required for water quality or dust control purposes, but the applicant can speak to the the maintenance and use of of those improvements. Again, all of those would be located on, on private property that is owned by. The other portion that we wanted to make note of is the facility access, which was a part of the reason why. Again, another complication to address. So we we met with the city of Oxnard at one point, you know, a few years back to they had basically provided an objection letter during one of the iterations of the project to kind of coordinate with them in terms of what kind of proposal would be acceptable. I don't want to mischaracterize that that we, you know, made changes to or asked changes with the applicant to address every single one of their concerns.

But this was basically the last iteration that that we came up with. And part of that is, is retirement of use of the City of Oxnard parcel. So in terms of in terms of the extent of that, we've we've placed conditions of approval, basically that that anything that would be, you know, considered composting operations, that they would be ceased and then they would be subject to kind of the normal rules for composting operations. So there there's provisions in the state law basically, that the site has to the site would have to be cleaned to a certain extent, and they would need to notify us, you know, or sorry, the local enforcement agency. So local enforcement agency is is another term for the county environmental health because they're the ones who operate this program within Ventura County. So they would cease operations. They've listed that on their plans in terms of what they would retire there. But the at this point, I don't believe that their intention is to demolish the building or, you know, restore like you would see restoration for like a mining plan or anything like that. It's not meeting that, that, that level of, of, of site remediation, basically just cleaning and making sure that, that, you know, the site is, is free of debris. So in terms of the. In terms of the, the environmental document, again, this is part of the the complicated history for this, this project, the the application when it was originally filed attempted to do, you know, a lot more with the project site. And those have been drawn back by the applicant. So we the the site originally under its original cup. And I've looked back at it

many, many times. There was an MND for that project. It didn't really cover a lot of the things that the the current MND that's before you today covered. But it was you know, basically I think at that time it asked for some some surveys and that that was pretty much it. The it when the there was a when the application was filed, a mitigated negative declaration was prepared by staff and it was released in December of, of 2013. That portion or sorry, that project did include, you know, handling of food waste, the installation of of different facility improvements, again, which are no longer a part of of this application. A. Another sorry, another notice of preparation. Sorry, I think I missed mistyped there. So I believe this is 2016. So September of 2016 was when we went out for, for public review for another iteration of the project. At that point we were basically stating that the, the. Or sorry, the, the, a part of the facility operations would be subject to an EIR. Those were potentially significant impacts because they were handling food waste. So we identified projects related to biological resources that would that would require extensive mitigation and monitoring. The I was here for the release of the the again, that was there was public scoping associated with that. There was release of the documents. And a lot of the comments that we received at

that time were were related to that, that food waste component. So at I believe it was in 2018 that the facility retired the use of of food material handling. The applicant can probably speak to that a little bit better, but I know that they have other facilities that that in the city of Oxnard that that handle food waste currently. And then we recirculated in 2018 at after that point, we received some changes to the project description. That was the one of the iterations of the the current. Configuration that's before you today. So basically reducing the proposed facility improvements to basically just open windrow composting, rearrangement of the use of the site, so that comments from the city of Oxnard can be somewhat addressed. And the basically the configuration that that pretty close to what you see today. And with that, we we released the mitigated negative declaration in April of 2023. At that point, we received comments from the Lafco identifying the the annexation issue. And to to give you a quick history, the applicant has always provided will serve letters from the Port Hueneme Water Agency, basically just demonstrating that they've that they would provide water service to the project or continue to provide water service to the project. But Lafco identified the jurisdictional issue and said, hey, they can't on that portion. You know, they have to then annex. So we devised this compliance regimen to sort of address the the Cup requests, which would include the the Cup

boundary expansion and a formally allowing for continued operation. And as a part of the as a part of the the the package before you. We do have response to those comments. We did respond to to several of those issues, and that is included with the mitigated negative declaration to this package. So if you do have questions about how we devised the the, the baseline for the project, basically we're saying that that the existing operations are, you know, the baseline for this. And we estimated the project related environmental impacts based on the expansion, the the additional truck trips and, and those kinds of changes and what basically were devised as mitigation measures are mitigation measures related to water resources and public health. So mitigation measure one, which is to the the treatment of of compost handling areas based on the the Regional Water Quality Control Board's requirements and then the public health condition relates to the handling of of water retained on site for application on Windrows. So they have to they have to meet and maintain. Certain operational requirements in order to to do that on the site. So those are the mitigation measures that are proposed with this this application. So the all told, we we did receive comments at the end, like like we discussed before, there was the notification from the

Regional Water Quality Control Board and the city of Oxnard. We we also received a request from the applicant regarding two conditions. So as a part of the errata, we did we did make the requested changes from the applicant. So there was a question about the the term of the Cup. So originally when we published this item, the expiration date was December 31st, 2030. The revised conditions extend that by an additional five years. The justification basically sorry the the the substantiation provided by the applicant is reasonable. So they're stating, you know that they these requirements will take time to implement. And once they're implemented, including the annexation requirement, that leaves a very limited term for them to sort of operate freely with their new cup boundary. So the new expiration is December 31st, 2035. Again, look at the the the errata to to verify. And we made some some other changes with with the comment letter from the the regional water Quality control board. We interfaced with our county stormwater program and Public Works Agency just to verify how we handle reporting. In that case, after talking with them and with environmental health, who is available for for questions. If you have questions about the inspection process for for a compost facilities, they're here to to handle that. But what they told us was basically we wouldn't we wouldn't be overseeing the regional water quality control board in terms of the, the, the, the monitoring and enforcement

of their requirements. So they, they have they basically regional Water Quality Control Board has, you know, their own jurisdiction over the site and the facility. We would be notified, you know, I think through carbon copy letters and things like that and communications. But in terms of condition compliance monitoring, we're not asking for reporting. So we removed that condition from from the proposal. Basically it said before, you know, commencing use, we would we would receive confirmation. Now what I stated in the in the errata memo was basically we generally do receive confirmation that they're compliant with other state agencies or federal agencies through reporting. We have a condition that's fairly standard. They just the applicant self-reports and says we have here's the here's the the proof that that we've complied with this other agency that has jurisdiction. So we'll rely on that for the monitoring of that aspect of the project. But in terms of the recommendation again, so ours is staff's recommendation is that the project be approved subject to conditions of approval as, as revised, and that you adopt the the mitigated negative declaration with the changes proposed in the response to comments. So staff's recommendation is that the the Planning Commission certify that they have reviewed and considered the staff report and all exhibits thereto, including the proposed Nhd, which is exhibit four of the Planning Commission staff report and has considered all comments received during the public comment period and hearing process. Find that the on the whole of the record before the Planning Commission, including any including the initial study. And any comments received that upon implementation of the project,

revisions and or mitigation measures, there is no substantial evidence that the project will have a significant effect on the environment and the reflects the Planning Commission's independent judgment and analysis that you adopt the Nhd, which is exhibit four, and the mitigation, Monitoring and Reporting Program, which is exhibit five, that you make the required findings to grant a major modification of a Cup pursuant to non non Coastal Zoning Ordinance, section 8111 Dash 1.1.1 A and 8111 dash 1.21.2. Of the NCO. Based upon substantial evidence presented in section E of the Planning Commission Staff report and the entire record, and that the Planning Commission grant major modifications up or sorry of Cup 5001-1 case number PL 13 zero one dash sorry 0101. Subject to the conditions of approval attached or as revised in the errata and attached as revised. Exhibit five specify that the clerk of the Planning Commission is the custodian. And 800 South Victoria Avenue, Ventura, California 9309 is the location of the documents and materials that constitute the record of proceedings upon which the decision is based. Again, I'll remind commenters that if you wish to speak on this item, you can use the raised hand function via zoom or press star and then nine to be queued for this item via phone. So I'm available if there's any specific questio%s on the project. We also have available for questions from the Planning Commission, the

applicant Bill Camarillo, and Rob Del Faro, with CSB consulting and the Environmental Health Division staff to. Thank you. Case Planner, a condo that was a lot of information to absorb. Are there any questions of staff by the Commission? I'm just curious. The last letter I think, that I read from the city of Oxnard was 2023. Has there been any further communication from the city in the last two years? So they they did provide a comment letter that was added to the the planning commission's record. So they did basically, you know, continue some of their objections to the facility. And I don't want to mischaracterize. So it looks like it's it's two items. I would say in order for me to not, you know, mischaracterize what they're they're representing in those letters, I think the project as condition and the analysis provided in the staff report is sufficient. The I think some of their concerns relate to the use of the City of Oxnard parcel. The there there are sort of realities. Again, this is a very complicated case. There's multiple jurisdictions that cross the the parcel. I would state that, you know, Ackerman owns that that parcel that's within the city's jurisdiction. Their driveway is located there. It will continue

to be located there. It is shown on the plans as being located there. I don't believe I believe it's incidental and I don't believe it constitutes, you know, conditional use permit operations extending on to the city portion that that they would need to to to be subject to a use permit separate with the city. This was part of the reason why again, the some of these delays occurred because there was a question about whether or not you could permit the composting use on on the City of Oxnard parcel. That's a very, very that's very broad summary of of of what the contention was. But the, the, the basic answer was no, right. That they have future plans for the area. This property is outside of that area. So that we do make reference in the response to comments of the the the plans for Ormond Beach, the the property owner can probably speak to that a little more, but I know that they've participated in those planning exercises. They're, you know, a known constraint of of those plans. But so their contention effectively is, is that this is, I believe, a resource protection general plan classification for the city parcel and that the any sort of use of the property would be subject to their rules and regulations. Right, and could potentially be subject to a. Use permit and whether or not they qualify for that, that would be City of Oxnard's, you know, role in responding to. But like I said, I believe we've planned appropriately for the retirement of uses on that property. There is a timing stated in the in the approval, which is is two years. The applicant is certainly free to

contact the City of Oxnard to to. You know, plan for those efforts or negotiate with with you know, if there's any quicker timeline or anything, anything that that both parties would would find amenable to each side. But in terms of the use permit or composting operations, the plan depicts, you know, the removal of of those materials and the relocation of the soil amendment operations to the the county portion. Thank you. Commissioner Boylston. Can I also add to that request you have on clarification the city letter that we received this week? In summary, they indicate that they feel that the that the project before you cannot be approved because it does not comply with all applicable city standards. And that analysis must be conducted. And they also indicate that the MND did not adequately analyze the project's compliance with the City of Oxnard standards. Two points I'd like to clarify, and I invite Jeff Barnes from County Council to assist me if I don't clarify this accurately, is that Ceqa does not analyze another jurisdiction, city standards. And what they're referring to is our guidelines for orderly development, which indicates if you have a parcel that's within a sphere of influence of a city. That the that the jurisdiction, for instance, in this case, the unincorporated county should, should attempt to align those land uses and those standards to the city's, in this case, we are maintaining the unincorporated allowable uses and standards on this, because this is a project that does not

align with the city standards. And again, that's a that's a for the guidelines. That's not a requirement. We have to work within the context that that parcel is not annexed into the city. And the applicant does have the right to go ahead and develop that parcel to the to the unincorporated standards. So I wanted to provide that clarification for you. And then I can defer to county council if I missed anything on that, in terms of their position as to why they feel this project can't be should not be approved. There we go. Jeff Barnes, Chief Assistant County Counsel good morning, commissioners. Yeah. So the the the applicability of Oxnard's general plan policies and development standards. It's it's somewhat complicated here. As Assistant Director Curtis said. So there's two there's basically two issues. One is and the most fundamental issue in my opinion is, you know, as you've heard, this land is within the unincorporated county. That is, except for the the top portion of private property, it's within the city's jurisdiction. But the bulk of, well, the the entire CEP boundary, besides the incidental entry to the site, is within the unincorporated area. Therefore, the county's General Plan and Development standards apply to this project period. The city's development standards and General Plan do not apply in terms of the Cup. That being said, you know, you've heard about the guidelines for orderly development. It's basically an agreement between the county and the cities where the basic gist of that is that urban development is encouraged to be

sited within cities where there's municipal services, which makes sense. The guidelines for areas like this project site that are located within a sphere of influence, and let me back up really quickly a sphere of influence. That's an area of the unincorporated county where the for in terms of regional planning, it's an area that makes sense to be annexed into a city eventually. And so that's what his fear is. And so the guidelines say when when you're dealing with unincorporated area, that's in a sphere of influence of a city. As Director Curtis said, the guidelines say that basically projects approved by the county should not, shall, should be at least as restrictive as as those of the city itself. And so that's basically to plan ahead and make sure there's consistency in the event the lands annexed into the city. So the basically the land uses on h those of the city say that projects in the sphere, you know, they should be applicants should be encouraged to seek annexation into the city for the same reason. So here there's no proposal, obviously, to annex this area into the city. So we're dealing with the county's underlying land use rules. The city's point is that, in their opinion, this project is not consistent with the county's or, I'm sorry, with the city's development standards and general plan policies. And a big issue for the city is the, you know, the restoration of Ormond Beach. And the city's position is this property, under the city's rules, should be used for, you know, a resource preservation.

And and so their their position is that this use is inconsistent with that. But again, in my opinion, legally that's the county can approve this project. The city development standards and general plan don't directly apply. And so hopefully that made sense. I am here to answer any questions. Isn't this property part of Sor? So. Yeah. So sor. That yes. I mean what Sor basically says. So this is a a general plan designated property. And so that's one of the general plan designated areas that is subject to to the Sor initiative. Yes. So, you know, obviously, Sor has the main point of source to require voter approval if if more intensive land uses are going to be allowed. So. But the short answer is yes, it's subject to to sor. Right. And that goes till 2050 currently. Correct? Correct. Yeah. So so nothing in that parcel that agreement owns. Nothing's going to be I mean this if it's part of the city but it's still not going to be developed. It can't be right unless a vote of the city of the population. Right. It would need to be annexed into the city. And, you know, as as we've heard, the city is or as the city has, has told us, even if it was annexed to the city, it's zoned as or pre general plan, designated as resource protection. So correct. There cannot be high density development on the on the parcel anytime soon. Okay.

Thank you. Yep I have a couple questions. So if the city does end up annexing this this property that puts the applicant at risk of of their operations, is that correct. That city doesn't want the the operation does that. Yeah. I don't I don't want to speculate on on annexation. It's not being proposed. And that can be a complicated process. And property owners do have rights in, in that in that event, in terms of the annexation proposal. And so but I mean, I'll let your observation stand. I guess I'll leave it that way. And then I have a just an educational question for myself. The coastal area that's not being used, it's non-conforming for them to be able to use that portion, would the applicant be able to ever come back to us as long as it's county and request permission to be able to use that portion, even though it's non-conforming? Could they come back to the Planning Commission and request to be able to utilize that additional property in the future? I haven't looked into that. I mean, I guess the applicants can ask for whatever they want, whether or not it's feasible, I don't know, I haven't looked at the general plan. I'm sorry, the coastal plan policies, I know it's it's it's closer to to sensitive habitat. I think there would definitely be coastal policy and and you know, wetland type restraints there. And I don't know if planning has any more information on that. So in the coastal zone composting operations are not not permissible. They're not

they're not they're prohibited. Okay, okay. And and what's the reason we've only approved five years at a time versus ten. We usually approve like 20 or 30 year cups. So the there is a violation attached. They do have compliance milestones that they have to meet. When we originally proposed the the the term before you in the first iteration of the staff report the five year term, it was so that we could basically monitor the implementation of the wastewater or, sorry, the stormwater implementation, the construction of the road and the annexation. Again, the justification for the extended period provided by the applicant we we agree with, which is this gives them a little bit, you know, longer term to to come back with us, you know, but we would be monitoring their progress and basically assuring that, yeah, they've complied with everything and there's no, no additional violations on the site. It seems, it seems to me that we'd want to potentially approve a longer term than ten years, because the risk of the city and the annexing and their operation. Were we allowed to do that? Commissioner Sandlin, the applicant, actually asked for five additional years. I think if there was a conversation that you wanted to have with the applicant on a term that is the most recent communication we have from them as of this week, that they've asked for up through 2035. But at this point, they haven't indicated they want they would like longer. So that actually hasn't been presented to us at this point. Okay, great. We'll wait to hear from the applicant. Yeah. One more question about the water. They already get service on the water already. Yes. Okay. So you're talking about this little piece here

that they have to then go get a will serve letter for that piece. No. So it's not a will serve letter they have to annex to be able to use water on on that portion. So water for operational purposes water for you know any any use on that site. They presently are outside of the service area for Port Hueneme Water Agency on that portion. Okay. It just seems kind of a little nitpicky to me. Or because if you've already have water to the whole rest of the property, what stops them from running a water line over there and just use that water off of that? So we do, we do we do make or there's a written description of of under what justification that's prohibited. We make that in the staff report, I don't know off the top of my head what the, the, the specific rationale. I think it was there's specific state law that says that that, you know, that has to be you have to be within the service area in order to do that. But I did ask those questions. I think maybe if county council has anything to add in terms of properties under the circumstance, because I'm sure it happens. The county is a big place. I'm sure it happens in more than one location. Yeah, it is a state law and I off the top of my head. I don't know the details about how the other portion of the of the site was provided water service, but but there is a state law stating that if you're going to get water from a public water purveyor, you need to be within the service area. That has to do with the laws that. Regional planning. So lafco type laws. And so it's it's a black and white state law. I believe we received a comment letter. Was

it from Cayugas or Metropolitan Cayugas Cayugas. So the water would the wholesale wholesaler is Cayugas. So the issue is on their radar. So yes, I mean, as a practical matter, the the permit could run a water line and use the water on, on the other portion, but that would not be consistent with state law. Okay, okay. So is there any way that they would not be able to get water over there? I mean. So yeah, that's that's a possibility. You know, Lafco submitted a few comment letters. The annexation process in this situation could be somewhat complicated, given the sphere of influence issue that I explained before, and also the location of the of the public entities that would be supplying water so that yeah, it's possible that annexation ultimately could not occur. Okay. Thank you. Okay. My turn. First of all, I just want to thank county staff for taking time with me to kind of go over the project. And I appreciate it because it's pretty complicated. But you were able to help clarify a lot. And just for clarification purposes, for this morning, for myself, we're really talking about the applicant who owns this large parcel of property and has voluntarily given up operations in those two areas where it's not compliant with the Coastal Commission, and also where the sphere of influence could potentially be for the city of Oxnard. Correct. And they're mitigating that at this point in time. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But but their operations have been ongoing for quite

some time. If we go back to the original 1998. Yeah. So, so in reality we're really just talking about on the parcel that is in the city of Oxnard, access to the property and the annexation of hopefully, water rights to the parcel in the back. Correct. Yeah, that's truly all that we are talking about in regards to those to that parcel that's in the city of Oxnard is traffic or access and water. Yes, yes. Now, I don't know if there's any sort of, any other incidental thing. The City of Oxnard comment letter makes reference to, I think, and I mentioned this in the presentation, the presence of K-rails. I think that that that's something that the applicant can probably speak to. But in terms of, in terms of what we would identify as sort of crossing that, that boundary, it is the, the, the site access, which is it has to be there. There's a building that's physically, you know, preventing them from sort of, I guess, sort of making their way. Security circuitously around through the county parcel. And again, they would have to always cross the city of Oxnard Road in order to get to the site. And they've been using this road to be able to do the business, the operations of this business all this time. The road's there. Yeah. Okay. Thank you so much. Any further questions? Okay. I will now open the public hearing with the applicant. Like to make a presentation on this item. Yes. Thank you. My name is Bill Camarillo. I'm the CEO of Argaman and I put in a comment card. But thank you for the time to speak to you today.

Breath of fresh air to hear some common sense. I have been trying to permit facilities in Ventura County now for probably a couple of decades. We had been permitting a very large compost center at the Limoneira property that's taken nearly 14 years to do so, and we've been working on this one since 2013. So Gregerman is an essential public service in Ventura County, no different than a wastewater treatment plant and a landfill. We are required, not agreement, but the state has mandated the diversion of organic waste from landfills to the tune of 75% of all organic waste has to be diverted, which is estimated in Ventura County to be over 500,000 tons. Today, Agroman manages nearly 240,000 of those tons on two sites. The site that's before you today, and the current operation at the Limoneira facility. Once Limoneira is constructed, it'll handle up to 300,000 tons. This one, if approved, could handle up to 90,000 tons. We've also just recently built a very expensive eight year project in the city of Oxnard that is a food waste processing center in the food waste or the food processing area of Oxnard, over off a mountain view that took eight years and cost nearly $20 million to process food waste in the county. So the goal here is both East and West County is to manage our own organic waste in Ventura County, so we don't have to ship it 100 miles into Kern County. The project at Limoneira was permitted for 50 years. We have a violation at this Arnold Road site because we can't get a cup to build the ponds required by the water board. There is a major disconnect between every

department in the state from the Air Board. The water Board, Calrecycle, local planning departments, local jurisdictions that oversee these facilities. We're one of the most highly regulated businesses in California, and we're we're an agri service business. We're ancillary to agriculture. We got a zone text amendment on Limoneira because we 85% of everything we make from the organic waste stream goes back to agriculture to improve soil health, which is mandated by the state of California. So we're just kind of stuck in this quagmire in Ventura County, where I grew up. In 2012, we were only in Ventura County, and I couldn't grow my business in Ventura County. Because of this process, we moved outside of Ventura County, and now we're in 15 counties in California and ten times our size, serving over 200 jurisdictions in California from San Diego to Sacramento. And we are welcomed in every county to provide these kinds of services so they can be in compliance. The county itself has a 15 year composting mandate by the state of California, and without these projects, Arnold Road Project Limoneira project, we also operate at the same landfill. The county would not be able to meet these mandates, so we would love a longer cup. Our 50 year one is going to be there to serve the county well beyond me. This location physically is a great location. We are surrounded by agriculture. The city property, five acres, is an island surrounded by county unincorporated area that is all agriculture. So the driveway they're talking about in the

k-rails and the track out thing is to make sure that we don't create a stormwater problem, and we force the trucks to go over these track outs so they don't take mud out into the street. And that mud ends up in stormwater drains. So it's very interesting when you're dealing with all these different agencies and trying to figure out how to navigate. This project was meant to help serve West Ventura County along with Limoneira. Then we built Mountain View to get the food waste out of the project, because it didn't belong out there. And to this new project, which we are really excited about and we were able to open last month. But again, that took eight years in the city. So we're on a track to try and do the right thing. We would like a longer cup. The only reason we have a violation is because we don't have a cup and can't build the stormwater ponds, and we need to use the entrance and having to get annexed for the one parcel. How do we water the piles? We water them with a water truck. So our water standpipe is in the area that's served by the Pleasant Valley Water District. And I'm being told I can't drive my water truck back there to water the piles because it's not part of the Cayugas Water District. Well, I'm not getting any water from Cayugas. I'm getting it from Pleasant Valley. So a lot of this for a business person is very tasking. But I, you know, I've been very successful because I refuse to quit. And it's the power of perseverance that seems to get to a place where there's common sense to help us figure out how to accomplish this mission. I'm happy to answer any questions you have. I've been doing this for 35 years, and we're excited with what's going on in California with organic waste, because it is a resource. So you want to talk about preserving resources. Every ton of compost we put in the ground

in agriculture reduces water consumption by 30%, reduces chemical fertilization by 50%. So we are improving agricultural grounds in Ventura County to help decarbonize agriculture to use less chemicals. So it's one big circular economy that we all live in. And hopefully you can find a way to help me get this project approved so we can continue our our efforts. And I'm here to answer questions. I'll sit right there. Thank you. I have one comment. Bill, thank you for your determination and not quitting on this because isn't the county could also be fined every day for not doing the recycling. All jurisdictions can, right? So in a sense, you're saving the cities and the counties money by doing what you do. All jurisdictions can be fined up to $10,000 a day for not meeting this mandate. And the only reprieve they have is that there's been about a three year reprieve because of the pandemic. So we know that all these permits got extended and taken longer because of the pandemic. It was hard to get everybody back to work. But yes, they faced penalties. Okay. Thank you. Go ahead first and just want to mention there Chair Kessler. They agreement and we work a lot with them. Obviously with the two sites. They've been in continuous operation throughout this time and throughout their iterative project description changes so that the continuity of their business service and the support for the community has not been affected by the the various, I guess, changes in approach, because initially it was food waste. It's different now, but I just want to mention that that we've been cognizant of that as well. The county has

been very helpful, not an impact on providing service, but a significant economic impact to all of us. The rates keep going up because we can't work efficiently. I have a couple questions for you. Question. It seems like your growth is based upon the state requirements that have been put. So this is the reason you're here to request in today is because the state is required, the counties and the cities, to be able to utilize these facilities. And it's a direct response of the state regulations. Does that seem correct? It is. And the I still curious about the coastal area, the coastal. If you guys could use that area, would you use that area. We would. But we'd have to go to the Coastal Commission, which is a whole nother. Yeah, challenge, a whole nother cylinder to figure out. I just don't, you know, I don't need any more brain damage to go work on that one. I'll just find another place to work. And if you could educate me a little more on the water issue and the reason for the annexation and the reason for this, what triggered that? Again, just because that one parcel is outside the Pleasant Valley Water District service area, not that it needs water, it doesn't need a well, it doesn't need a pipe. That area is used for curing of the compost, but we still need to water it because composting requires water, oxygen and the material itself. But all of our compost centers are served by water trucks just because the materials heavy, big, and we don't move it around. And is there a infrastructure to that parcel now, or would there have to be like new infrastructure that's put in place? We don't need any infrastructure to that area. No, but but the annexation of that other parcel you're saying needs to go to Vegas to be able to utilize it. I'm, I'm confused by Lafcos

comments. I'll have to defer to our consulting expertise to figure out why we need to do this. But yeah, I'd like to know maybe the consultant can speak on that, because I'd like to understand the whole water issue and why it's such an issue. Sorry, Rob, I tried. Yeah, that's a good question. Rob. Dhofar with Cesp consulting. There's fees associated with water for Metropolitan through Cayugas. And so to to recover costs. I think it needs that portion needs to be annexed into the into these water districts to help cover the cost of supplying the water. It's already been supplied through Pleasant Valley. So you're saying that because it's they're located there, we have to pay the other people there. Is that that's that's the gist of the whole annexation. So this this site used to be two parcels. And in 1998 World Soils came in to, to do composting. And their application triggered the annexation requirement, even though there was water already there. The water had been there since the 50s. I think the it triggered annexation into these water districts. And in that annexation process, the way they drew their site plan, it split those parcels into four parcels that there are now. So that one parcel to the northwest, that's, you know, that piece of that that's blue, that was outside of that project description. So the two parcels that are the south, south, sort of the east side, those were annexed to allow water service. And so if they would have, if they would have annexed the other piece, that we wouldn't be talking about it today, but it just wasn't part of the project boundary. Yeah. And one more question for the

do you want to ask a question on that too as well? Yeah. Commissioner Boyce would like to ask follow up question to that water issue. So it's been my experience, recent experience with the property that was not in a water district, that the issue was you cannot improve, put improvements or put a project on a piece of land that did not was not in water or have water rights. And there are standing lawsuits when people try to do that, especially in the city of Oxnard. Right? Yeah. Thank you for that clarification. Commissioner Boysen wasn't wasn't much of a clarification, but yeah. Okay. I question in regards to applicant that came up with the the term of the Cup. That's probably a question for Bill. Bill in my question is why don't you align the cup with what you got going on with Limoneira. They're. Well the goal at Limoneira is to move a lot of the heavy lifting over to the Lehman Air project, because it's going to go from 15 acres to 70, and the remaining operations at the Arnold Road site are primarily the storage and blending of compost to go back to the agricultural consumers. But we also receive grain waste in at that location from landscapers and homeowners, and some routes to reduce vehicle miles travel. So this whole vehicle miles traveled issue. You all drive the 101 freeway, and the more trash trucks we have going to one location is a problem because there's a lot of trucks on the west side that you're going to make to drive all the way to the east side, and that's going to create a big problem, you know, down Los Angeles Avenue, getting on the 126 getting off. So we wanted

to make sure there was enough capacity to reduce the traffic impacts on where materials could go. We didn't think we could get a longer cup. You know, it's historically been five years, and we thought asking for ten was way outside the window. But we bought that property and we've only been there since 2006, just to be clear. And we serve the city of Oxnard. City of Oxnard brings all of its organic waste to us. So it's not it's the different division of the city versus planning. And they don't understand how this all works together, which is part of the challenge. It's a lack of education. So that's really why we didn't think we could get more time there. We would stay as long as we're allowed to stay because it's important to the community. I don't see Ventura County not continuing to develop. We just do it slowly compared to other counties. So your term for Limoneira goes to what year? It's 50 years and it was entitled in February 8th, 2022. I remember the day right in this room, but it still taken almost four years to get all the construction permits. And we finally have the grading plan and permits. So we're hoping to put a shovel in the ground hopefully before this year ends. So. So what term if you were to request a longer term today, what what type of term would you like to for q p well, I don't plan on working past 20 years. About 20 years would probably be good. Better than ten. Sounds good. Mr. I just have one question, obviously, and you touched on this already, and I think you may have mitigated my my concerns. I live in the city of Simi Valley, and recently we were very, very impacted by fire debris, truck traffic on the 118. So I'm very sensitive to increase in truck traffic.

And I know that your proposed your proposed cup may increase truck traffic by about 50%, but I have a sense that's coming from different directions and it's not going to impact one area like Simi Valley. And I wanted to get clarification from you on that. Correct. It doesn't. So most of the tons coming out of the city of Camarillo will come from a different direction than the tons coming out of the city of Oxnard, okay. And most of those are bigger trucks. So there's actually less smaller vehicles traveling to those locations. We try to be as much commercial generated as possible, so we try to force a lot of the smaller customers to the transfer stations, like Gold Coast Recycling in Ventura and the Del Norte Transfer Station, because they're built for more traffic. And then we receive the transfer trailer trucks in from those locations to reduce traffic getting out to Arnold Road. And where would they which highways would maybe be the most impacted? Most of it's internal, so not a lot of people are going to get on the 101 freeway because they're coming west from Oxnard and Camarillo, so they're not getting on the freeway. They're coming down, you know, Pleasant Valley Road or Fifth Street to get over to the center. Okay. Thank you. And then one question for county council, maybe if we do agree to a 20 year cup, what limitations is there for expansion if we approve a longer cup and they wanted to make improvements, would they have to bring it back to the Planning commission or expanded or expansion to their operations? So so yeah, two issues. It's within your Commission's discretion to grant a longer Cup term. And then in terms of expansion, yes.

If if the the Permittee wants to expand outside of the the current cup boundary, then that would require a modification. If that's not being approved today. Thank you. Just a clarification on that. Could those modifications be approved by the planning director itself, or do they all have to come back to the Planning commission? That's a good question. It depends on the level of of modifications. There's I believe it's only an assistant director. Curtis, correct me if I'm wrong, but it's only major modifications. And the zoning ordinance specifies what what level of mods require you know what approval. So basically if only if they're fairly significant, would they have to come back to the planning commission versus planning director level? Okay, Commissioner. So I it's sort of a question in the weeds, probably for CSP on the the storm drainage concept, how the system is working. It's, as I understand it, looking at your your material stormwater is mainly surface drain to the the the drainage basin. And in order to facilitate that and not get in the groundwater, most of the. The surface that it is draining across is impermeable. Correct. Yeah. The regional water Board, with their composting permitting, requires 1 to 10, ten to the -five centimeter per second permeability on working

surfaces where your composting and ten to the minus six in the retention pond. So all those surfaces that would have active composting yeah would be essentially impermeable. And all the drainage would head to the, to that retention pond. And that's helped by an elevated fire road. Yeah. So the fire road gets elevated on the west side as it cuts across and it gets back down to ground level as it gets near the pond and the retention pond. And then there's a little tail berm that comes down along the bottom piece that also would just divert. Just make sure to divert everything over to the to that pond. So so the weak link that I sort of saw, and maybe it's not a weak link, is the gravel parking lot that all the water has to or majority of the water has to flow over to the basin. Right. Why is it gravel rather than asphalt that would allow less permeable? Well, this is the site grading and we don't have the grading plan yet. But I think the, you know, the concept would be to be diverting it more to the right, to the east side, you know, not necessarily not across, because that's not the way your arrows show it now. Okay. Either that diverted away from that gravel area or to divert it around it. Right, right. So that it's not, you know, or we could work on compacting it. Yeah. And then another question. The use of sandbags. Yes. That that is now they've they have actually elevated the entrance. Okay. And kind of bermed it a little bit. So now run on is basically been that's what I was wondering. You know rather sandbag seems a little precarious. You know, nobody's going to want to do that unless there's a something huge happening. But we can't really predict rain events very well these days as far as how much

comes down. So having more sort of permanent. Measures to keep water from going out into Arnold and more maybe as important, going in and only having to sandbag the entry right seems more in line. Yeah, they fixed that. They fixed that in the last couple of years okay. All right. Thank you. Secretary Lewis, do we have any public comments or speakers for this item? Chair Kesley we do have we do have one which is the applicant. So he did went ahead and kind of like turned in his his speaker cards. But I'm not sure if he would like to speak again unless you have additional questions for him. And we do have two registrations from zoom, but they only wanted to watch the proceedings of the meeting, but do not want to speak on the items. Okay. With with staff like to present any closing remarks. Just other than to mention that this, as Mr. Camarillo indicated, this is an integral facility. It does have a direct nexus with Limoneira. And this this commission has supported both projects to the to the, to the tune that we actually did a text amendment to allow for the project. So we defer to you on any recommended revisions to the project description and term, and want to thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you. I will now close the

gosh, I gotta move this closer to me. I will now close the public hearing and I will look to my fellow commissioners. Any discussion or a motion. I have a question for county counsel. Again I'd like to ask is, is it possible with our motion that we can make a recommendation to Lafco that we support the annexation of the water from the Planning Commission? You know, I think it would be better to if you're if your commission wants to make that recommendation, I think probably the better approach would be to have the planning division keep that, keep that thought in mind, and then come back to the the planning Commission when there's an actual application. And that process is already in the works, because right now there is no application. So we don't know exactly what we don't even know which agency is going to be would be carrying that application proposal. So that's all to say that I think it's, it's it's fine. I think conceptually and I'm sorry, I'm somewhat thinking out loud obviously, but it's absolutely fine to conceptually have the Planning Commission take that position as part of your motion. But again, there is no actual annexation process to to chime in on at this point. So it'd have to be kind of a high level. The Planning Commission thinks in concept it's it's, you know, a good project and a good idea to, to annex it. I was thinking in response to their letter to us, excuse me, I was just thinking in response to their letter to us. Yeah, I understand. I'll make a motion.

Commissioner Boysen, I'd like to to go on record supporting the project. I think you're an essential business. And and and very much supports your mission in the county and around the state. I would do the caveat to planning to look at the final grading plan and make sure that that water gets to the drainage pond, not through any pervious areas, and also that Arnold Road be have permanent protections for water going either way. I also would support the 20 years extension for the Cup, because I think you need that time to work effectively with other agencies and also to develop your business. So very much support that. Thank you, thank you. I'm also in favor of the project. It always takes longer. And I know Mr. Camarillo says he's only going to work for 20 years, but I would support a 25 year because, you know, I said I was going to retire a long time ago, too, and it never worked out. So yeah, I would support the project. I also support the project too as well. And I concur with Mr. Cushing on the 25 year and also would like to in any motion, include response to the lafco that we do support the annexation for the water to support the project as well. Okay. So there's a motion on the floor for 20 years. 25, 20, 25. Did you you made the motion. I don't think he made a motion. No, you made I made the motion. Oh, you made the motion. Sorry,

sorry. I'm lost. All right, so we have a motion on the floor to approve staff's recommendation, but also increase the Cup term to 25 years. I have a second. I'll second it. Thank you, Commissioner Cushing. Any further discussion or comments? Also, just want to make sure that the motion included the support for the annexing of the water as well. Yeah. Okay. Secretary Luce, please call. Roll, roll. All right. Commissioner Boydston. Yes, Commissioner Cushing. Yes. Vice chair. Sandlin. Yes. Chair. Kesley. Yes. Thank you. All right. The motion carries with A44 vote and one absent. The next item is item number seven. A report from Assistant Planning director. Well, actually, no, Susan, you'll take on for us any any reports or board action and other matters. Thank you. Chair. Kesley, just want to let you know that we do have a scheduled Planning Commission hearing for December 4th for an item, and it's an appeal of a zoning clearance for a temporary use permit option for a facility or so that's going to be coming to you. And Mr. Ward will be working with the planner on that item. And that's the only item at this point that we have on the agenda. Okay. Well, are there any other items the commissioners wish to discuss or introduce? Seeing none. This meeting is adjourned.