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DUNKIRK DRIVE
64 acre mixed use community in Oxnard, CA.

Ventura County voters' passage of the Save Our Agricultural Resources initiative ("SOAR") limits land development to the area inside each incorporated city's urban restrictive boundary, and strictly prohibits any such activity in the county's substantial greenbelts.

While this slow growth initiative serves to protect open space and quality of life for the County's existing residents, it also places an artificial constraint on the supply of buildable land in an otherwise fast-growing metropolitan area. As a result, tension between competing interest groups has escalated as they fight over the use of the few remaining infill parcels within each city's urban boundary.

It is within this historic context that Community Dynamics, in a joint venture with a publicly traded company, locked in 64 acres just south of Oxnard Airport for the development of a residential community.

Existing neighbors to the property's south and west expressed concern that we would significantly increase housing density, and generate heavy traffic in their local streets. The local school district advised that its existing facilities were already stressed to the max, and few, if any, satisfactory new school sites remained. The City's parks department insisted the area desperately needed more developed parkland but decried a lack of funds with which to build the necessary improvements. And the Ventura County Department of Airports objected to housing creep threatening the Airport's sphere of influence.

We and our consulting team responded to these tensions by designing a community of 241 single family homes at an efficient density which, at the same time, is respectful of existing patterns of development in the surrounding residential neighborhoods.

We significantly widened the two major arterials on the site's northerly and easterly perimeter, thereby enhancing traffic flows. We introduced a true European style roundabout at the intersection adjacent to the community's main entry, the first of its kind in Ventura County. While our site planners developed a traditional grid for neighborhood circulation, we did design a cul-de-sac for the one street which would otherwise have directly contributed tributary traffic to the existing neighborhood. And we cut a landscaped paseo through the cul de sac to allow pedestrians direct access to this new addition to their community.

With 8 acres of business-research park and 14 acres of parkland, we buffered our proposed residential neighborhood from the airport's sphere of influence. At the local school district's request, the City agreed to set aside a potential 8 acre school site within the designated parkland, and we offered to apply the school fee credits we would otherwise receive from the dedication of that land to the complete development of new recreational facilities on the remaining 6 acres of parkland right next to the school.

The result: neighborhood support, a finding of consistency from the County's Airport Land Use Commission, a unanimous vote of approval from the City's Planning Commission and Council, and a first-rate community plan for the people of Oxnard.
 
 
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