SOAR For Open Spaces
SOAR For Good Food
SOAR For The Next Generation
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SOAR Protects Ventura County’s Open Space.
SOAR (Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources) is a series of voter initiatives that protect open space and farmland by vote of the people. The County SOAR requires a vote countywide before agricultural, rural or open space land in the unincorporated county can be rezoned for development. The eight voter-approved SOAR initiatives passed by the cities of Camarillo, Fillmore, Moorpark, Oxnard, Santa Paula, Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks and Ventura require a citywide vote of approval for urban development beyond a City Urban Restriction Boundary (CURB), or, in the case of the City of Ventura, before rezoning agricultural land within the city’s sphere of influence. The Thousand Oaks SOAR initiative also protects open space and parks within the city.
The SOAR Myth Buster Fact Sheet is your resource for busting the myths about SOAR.
SOAR is a series of voter initiatives that require a vote of the people before agricultural land or open space areas can be rezoned for development.
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Check out the latest news, updates, and campaigns affecting open space and agriculture in and around Ventura County.
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CERF is totally wrong on this. They keep comparing VC to LA County and Orange County, as if we should strive to be more like them.
No more! We are full.
It is so sad.
Tragic.
CERF must really dig our once fluid 101 fwy, that now is clogged like the San Fernando Valley… Without the 20,000 new units. The planning, or lack of, is ridiculous. I’m all for some planning that makes sense. They are wrecking this amazing 805.
SOAR needs to hold a Town Hall forum with its' representatives so the community and voters can ask questions and get answers with the current status of development in VC.
Pave it all over, build single family homes with yards, schools, parks and open spaces ! People want that.
What's the difference? SOAR has been a worthless initiative. Not a single square inch of farmland, not one, has been protected from being turned into cookie-cutter "affordable" housing or cheap housing tracts. Even Santa Rosa Valley properties are practically on top of each other now. I will emphatically vote NO on SOAR next time it comes up for a vote. It is a needless regulation that doesn't accomplish anything. It seems that the purpose of it is to create a weapon that the BoS can use against a developer that it doesn't like, because it certainly hasn't protected any space.
Please clarify... the last extension of SOAR included the following: "In addition to extending the core voter approval requirements of the General Plan, among others: (1) eliminate voter approval requirements for redesignations needed to comply with state housing laws for all economic segments of the community (e.g., for low and very low income housing); (2) eliminate voter approval requirements for redesignations of up to 12 acres of land countywide for processing of locally grown food; Steve Bennett and Linda Parks are listed at the bottom of the "NOTICE OF INTENT TO CIRCULATE PETITION." My understanding is Steve Bennett is a board member of SOAR and Linda Parks is the current Executive Director of SOAR. At the time of the SOAR extension, she was on the VC Board of Supervisors and SOAR Board Member when the SOAR extension occurred. The question is: Should the loophole for development that was created with the extension be closed?