Article 1 — Historical Background

Prior to March 27, 1979, the City of Ojai was experiencing rapid growth in population, housing, land development, inappropriate utilization of resources and deteriorating air quality which, if uncontrolled, would have resulted in the City being unable to meet the requirements of the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts of 1977 as well as irrevocably changing the City's small town character and jeopardizing its spectacular natural environment.

In order to implement the City's General Plan, to comply with the provisions of the Clean Air Act and the Ventura County (the "County") Air Quality Management Plan (the "AQMP"), the City did adopt Ordinance No. 571 commonly known as the Growth Management Plan (the "Former Plan").

The Former Plan adopted provided:

• (a) That residential development be limited using a formula that was based on the then current General Plan land use, circulation and housing elements and population forecasts.

• (b) A system of priorities to evaluate applications and permits.

• (§ 1, Ord. 769, eff. January 8, 2004)

In June, 1979, the Former Plan was amended to provide that the total number of allocations available would be adjusted as annexations were approved. (§ 1, Ord. 769, eff. January 8, 2004)

The Former Plan has had a substantial impact on the City's population growth. Between 1970 and 1979, the City's population had grown at a rate of 22%. Between 1980 and 1990, the first decade of the Former Plan, the City's population growth declined to 10%. Finally, during the last decade of the Former Plan, between 1990 and 2000, the population growth in the City was a total of 3%. On average during the Former Plan's tenure, the City's population growth rate has averaged less than one percent per annum (refer to Table 1). However, when adjusted for annexations and housing projects constructed within the City which are not subject to the Former Plan's provisions, e.g., senior and affordable housing developments, the actual growth in the City's population during the last 20 years has averaged one-half percent.

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Table 1: Population Growth for City
(January 1978—April 2000)
Year Total Population % Pop. Increase Persons per Household
1/1/78 6,294
1/1/79 6,368
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Table 1: Population Growth for City
(January 1978—April 2000)
Year Total Population % Pop. Increase Persons per Household
1/1/80 6,427 0.918
4/1/80 6,816 (Adj. for 1980 Census) 5.707 2.501
1/1/81 6,973 2.251 2.471
1/1/82 7,099 1.774 2.461
1/1/83 7,260 (Whispering Oaks 2.217 2.480
Counted)
1/1/84 7,360 1.358 2.516
1/1/85 7,440 1.075 2.505
1/1/86 7,472 0.428 2.492
1/1/87 7,482 0.133 2.481
1/1/88 7,578 1.266 2.475
1/1/89 7,617 0.512 2.494
1/1/90 7,641 0.314 2.481
4/1/90 7,613 (Adj. for 1990 Census) (-0.367) 2.474
1/1/91 7,614 0.013 2.467
1/1/92 7,722 1.398 2.496
1/1/93 7,773 0.656 2.515
1/1/94 7,851 0.993 2.531
1/1/95 8,026 2.180 2.567
1/1/96 8,040 .1741 2.560
1/1/97 8,098 0.716 2.566
1/1/98 8,181 (Montgomery Oaks 1.014 2.589
Counted)
1/1/99 8,243 0.752 2.606
1/1/00 8,258 0.181 2.687
4/1/00 7,862 (Adj. for 2000 Census) (-0.55) 2.481
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Population increase in first 10 years (1980—1990) = 11.69% ÷ 10 = 1.17% per year. Population increase in second 10 years (1990—2000) = 3.27% ÷ 10 =0.327% per year. Population increase (1980—2000) 15.34% ÷ 20 years =0.767% per year. Plan exemptions:

Annexations: 346

Affordable Housing: Whispering Oaks, 251; Montgomery Oaks, 54.

(§ 1, Ord. 769, eff. January 8, 2004)

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• (a) Introduction. Although the Federal Clean Air Act has significantly improved our nation's air quality, many areas still have serious air quality problems. Ozone, the main constituent of smog, is the most serious and widespread air pollution problem in the country.

Ozone is a colorless and highly reactive gas. It is not emitted directly into the air, but is formed in the lower atmosphere by chemical reactions involving reactive organic compounds (ROC) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) in the presence of sunlight. These "ozone precursor" pollutants come from such varied sources as gasoline vapors, fuel combustion, chemical solvents and household products such as hair sprays, deodorants and cleaners. Ozone reaches peak levels by mid-afternoon and, along with ozone precursors, is usually carried inland by sea breezes. Thus, inland areas such as the City and the Ojai Valley often have the highest ozone levels and the most days which exceed the Federal and State ozone standards. The smoggiest days tend to occur from May through October (smog season) when stable atmospheric conditions and high temperatures produce conditions conducive to ozone formation.

In the United States, 100,000,000 people live in areas that do not meet the Federal clean air standards for ozone. Further, 150,000,000 people live in areas not in compliance with at least one Federal clean air standard. Ozone reacts with lung tissue, irritating and inflaming the lungs. It may cause chest pains, shortness of breath, coughing, nausea, throat irritation and increased susceptibility to respiratory infections. Scientific evidence indicates that long-term, repeated exposure to ozone can permanently scar lung tissue, thereby reducing breathing ability. Ozone-sensitive groups include children, athletes, pregnant women, the elderly and people with respiratory problems.

The national economic loss from air pollution is estimated to be $75,000,000,000.00 per year. Ten to 12% of our national health care costs are attributable to air pollution-related illness, and air pollution is thought to be responsible for a 2% loss in United States worker productivity. Air pollution also adversely affects agricultural crops. Nationwide, ozone is thought to reduce crop yields by five to 10% per year, costing $3,000,000,000.00—$5,000,000,000.00 per year. In California, annual ozone-induced crop damage reduces agricultural yields by up to 20%.

It also damages the natural environment, ecosystems and plant and animal species.

The County, and specifically the Ojai Valley due to its geographical characteristics, is one of the areas that has a severe ozone problem. Over the last 10 years, the County averaged about 35 days per year over the Federal ozone standard and 112 days over the more stringent State standard. The City's average was four and 23 days, respectively. During the 1970s and prior to passage of the Former Plan, first stage smog alerts were common in the City. Since 1980, however, there have been only two first stage smog alerts. Both alerts occurred in 1989 during unusual weather conditions. Air quality improvements are occurring as a result of increased emission requirements for automobiles and City and County growth management. Between 1990 and 2000, the City's population increased by only 3%. Although ozone levels have declined significantly in recent years, the City and County still experience violations of the Federal and State ozone standards.

As the County grows, achieving and maintaining clean air will be greatly influenced by local land use decisions. Reducing vehicle trips and population growth generated by new development must be an important consideration in the land use planning process. If air

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quality in the Ojai Valley is to continue improving, the land use, economic development, transportation, energy and environmental policies that form the foundation of local land use plans must balance future growth with the need for clean air.

There is no simple answer to the City's smog problem. Its air quality is better than it was 20 years ago. Nevertheless, air pollutants must be further reduced to bring the County and the City into compliance with Federal and State clean air standards.

Clean air is important to people. People know that an area with good air quality is a better and more attractive place to live, work and visit. All City residents deserve clean air to breathe. The City Council is committed to meeting all clean air standards as soon as possible.

• (b) Federal Clean Air Act. The first comprehensive national air pollution legislation was the Federal Clean Air Act of 1970. In 1977, the Federal Clean Air Act was amended to require plans for meeting the national clean air standards "as expeditiously as practicable," but no later than December 31, 1982. However, the Clean Air Act permitted the United States Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") to extend the attainment date of some ozone and carbon monoxide non-attainment areas to December 31, 1987. Ventura County was one of the ozone areas given an extension to December 31, 1987.

On November 15, 1990, President George H. Bush signed the 1990 Federal Clean Air Act Amendments ("CAAA") into law. That landmark legislation, which took nearly 12 years to enact, began a new and comprehensive effort to provide all Americans with clean air. Central to the CAAA are specific dates by which all areas of the country, including the County, must meet the Federal clean air standards. To achieve that ambitious objective, the CAAA contains a vast number of new requirements. Examples of the new requirements include specific emission reduction targets, stricter motor vehicle pollution limits, additional pollution limits, additional pollution controls on industrial facilities, less polluting vehicle fuels and new permit and compliance programs. The CAAA also contains economic incentive strategies to encourage industry to curtail air polluting emissions voluntarily.

The CAAA gives the States primary responsibility for achieving Federal clean air standards. The State Implementation Plan ("SIP") is the principal mechanism at the State and local level for complying with the CAAA. A SIP is a document that outlines the actions and programs that a State will take to carry out its Clean Air Act responsibilities. The EPA approves all SIPs. Once approved, a SIP is legally binding under both State and Federal law. The AQMP is a component of the California SIP.

Under the CAAA, ozone areas are classified based on the severity of each area's respective ozone problem. These classifications are marginal, moderate, serious, severe and extreme. Marginal areas are areas closest to meeting the Federal ozone standard, where the country's only extreme area (the greater Los Angeles area) has the worst ozone problem. Each area must not only comply with all the requirements for its own classification, but also must comply with the requirements of the lower classifications, unless otherwise specified. For example, a serious ozone area must comply with all the requirements for serious, marginal and moderate areas. This means that areas with more severe air quality problems have progressively more requirements to meet under the CAAA. Also, an area's ozone classification determines how long the area has to attain the Federal ozone standard. Marginal areas have three years; moderate areas, six years; serious areas, nine years; severe

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areas, either 15 or 17 years, depending on the magnitude of their respective ozone problem, and the only extreme area, 20 years. The County, including the Ojai Valley and the City, is a severe-15 ozone nonattainment area, meaning that they must achieve the Federal one hour ozone standard by 2005.

The CAAA also provides sanctions that the EPA can, and in some cases must, impose on areas that fail to meet CAAA requirements. The CAAA authorizes two types of mandatory sanctions: (1) withholding Federal highway project funds and (2) two-to-one (2:1) emission offsets for major stationary sources. There are also several types of discretionary sanctions that the EPA can impose, such as withholding grants for air quality planning.

The EPA may impose sanctions for: (1) failure to submit an SIP or a portion of an SIP; (2) disapproval of an SIP by the EPA; (3) failure to carry out the provisions in an approved SIP; and (4) failure to submit any provision required by the CAAA. If the problem is not corrected within 18 months, the EPA must impose one of the two mandatory sanctions. The EPA can impose both sanctions if an area fails to make a good faith effort to correct the problem. On July 22, 1994, the EPA issued its final "order of sanctions" rule. The rule stipulates that the first sanction imposed will be the two-to-one (2:1) emission offset. If the sanctionable deficiency is not corrected within six months, Federal highway funds will be withheld. Although these sanctions would be imposed on the County, which has the primary responsibility for meeting Federal and State air quality standards, the City is obligated to do its part to assist in that effort.

• (c) Federal Implementation Plan. The 1982 AQMP did not show that the County would meet the Federal ozone standard by December 31, 1987, as mandated by the 1977 Clean Air Act Amendments. In response, the Citizens to Preserve the Ojai ("CPO") sued the EPA in 1988. The lawsuit asked that the EPA disapprove the 1982 AQMP, impose a construction moratorium on new and modified major sources of ROC emissions and prepare a Federal Implementation Plan ("FIP") to achieve the Federal ozone standard.

• (d) Previous planning efforts. The first study of air pollution in the County occurred in 1966. That study found that the County had a serious air pollution problem, citing over 70 smoggy days per year. Consequently, the Ventura County Air Pollution Control District was formed in 1968 (the "District"). The District's mission was, and continues to be, to protect public health and agriculture from the adverse effects of air pollution by identifying air pollution problems and developing a long-range comprehensive program to achieve and maintain State and Federal air quality standards.

• (e) Previous AQMPs. The 1979 AQMP, the County's first comprehensive air quality plan, anticipated that the Federal ozone standard would be attained by 1987. That prediction was optimistic, as it soon became clear that attainment by 1987 would not occur. However, based upon air quality concerns, the City enacted Ordinance 571 and implemented the Former Plan.

The 1982 AQMP was a refinement of the 1979 AQMP. That AQMP contained a more accurate emission inventory and additional emission control measures. The 1982 AQMP also separated the County into two air sheds, the Ojai Valley Airshed and the Oxnard Plain Airshed. The 1982 AQMP was more realistic, recognizing that the Federal ozone standard would not be met by the end of 1987.

In early 1985, the District began a comprehensive effort to update and improve the AQMP. A more accurate emission inventory was developed, new control measures were proposed

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and a new, more accurate air quality model was used. Although the 1987 AQMP contained new control measures to further reduce ozone precursor emissions, the 1987 AQMP concluded that the Federal ozone standard could not be made without additional emission reductions.

The next County AQMP, the 1991 AQMP, was prepared in response to the California Clean Air Act. That AQMP, built on the 1987 AQMP, contained new and revised control measures designed to move the County further toward State and Federal clean air standards. The 1991 AQMP was adopted by the District's Air Pollution Control Board on October 8, 1991.

• (f) 1994 AQMP. The primary purpose of the County 1994 AQMP was to satisfy the planning requirements of the CAAA and to outline a strategy for meeting the Federal ozone clean air standard by 2005, while accommodating a reasonable and inevitable amount of growth. The CAAA requirements addressed by the 1994 AQMP were attainment of the Federal ozone standard by 2005, a post-1996 rate-of-progress demonstration, contingency measures, an updated 1990 baseline emissions inventory, revised 1990—1996 rate-ofprogress emissions reduction calculations and revised estimates that show that motor vehicle emissions will decrease despite increases in vehicle use. The 1994 AQMP also satisfied the requirements of the California Clean Air Act to submit a triennial progress report and revisions to the 1991 AQMP by the end of 1994.

• (g) 1995 AQMP revision. The purpose of the 1995 AQMP revision was to update information presented in the 1994 AQMP to reflect changes that have occurred since the plan was adopted on November 8, 1994.

Based on the emissions control strategy proposal in the 1995 AQMP revision, the District projects attainment of the Federal one-hour ozone standard in 2005, as mandated by the Federal Clean Air Act. Recent information indicates that the County's attainment of Federal one-hour standards for ozone by 2005 is probable. However, the District will not attain California's more stringent health-based ambient ozone standard by 2005. In addition, Federal law has recently set a new eight hour standard that will be extremely difficult for the County to attain. Accordingly, the City's efforts to control growth in order to assist the County in meeting its clean air mandates must continue for the foreseeable future. (§ 1, Ord. 769, eff. January 8, 2004)

In July, 1982, the County adopted Ordinance No. 3603, providing for a limitation on issuance of residential building permits in the Ojai Valley in order to protect air quality and implement the AQMP. The formula used by the County for limiting building permits ensures consistency with adopted AQMP housing and population estimates and forecasts for the Ojai Valley, including the City. A housing project which would cause the City to exceed these estimates and forecasts would be determined to be inconsistent with the AQMP and, therefore, also determined to have a significant cumulative adverse air quality impact. (§ 1, Ord. 769, eff. January 8, 2004)

In 1993, the City adopted an air quality element to its General Plan. The element's primary goal is to ensure a level of air quality which protects its citizens' health, safety and welfare and meets

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or surpasses State and Federal air quality standards. One of the element's policies in pursuing this goal is to manage the City's population growth. The suggested implementing strategy for this policy is continued enforcement of City residential and commercial growth management plans. (§ 1, Ord. 769, eff. January 8, 2004)

During 1982 and 1983, the Legislature of the State adopted legislation encouraging cities to provide affordable housing opportunities to all of its citizens. The impact of such legislation is as follows:

• (a) A housing element is required as a component of each jurisdiction's General Plan by Section 65580 of the Government Code. According to Section 65583 of the Government Code, the housing element shall consist of an identification and analysis of existing and projected housing needs and a statement of goals, policies, quantified objectives and scheduled programs for the preservation, improvement and development of housing. The housing element must identify adequate sites for housing, including rental housing, factorybuilt housing and mobile homes, and must make adequate provision for the existing and projected needs of all economic segments of the community. In addition, Government Code Section 65913.1 requires the City, consistent with its General Plan, to designate and zone sufficient vacant land to meet its projected housing needs. The City's currently adopted and State-approved housing element for years 2000 to 2005 provides programs that will enable the City to meet these needs, while at the same time recognizing the necessity of this ordinance in order to address the environmental constraints on growth caused by the need to meet clean air standards.

• (b) The State Local Housing Element Law requires each association of governments to determine housing needs and distribution within its region. The Southern California Association of Governments has developed a Regional Housing Allocation Model which assigns "future housing unit needs for all income groups, adjusted to avoid impaction" for each jurisdiction. This allocation of regional housing needs ("RHNA") determines housing needs that each jurisdiction must include in its housing element. (Government Code Section 65583(a)(1).) The housing element must include implementation measures to meet the determined housing needs. The City's currently adopted housing element provides for increased housing opportunities in 2000— 2005 within the City and progress toward the City's meeting its RHNA goals. The plan exempts affordable housing from its restrictions.

• (c) Density bonuses are generally required by Government Code Section 65915 for developments which include a specified percentage (i.e., 25%) of affordable housing. This ordinance exempts those housing developments which meet the requirements for density bonuses.

• (d) Recent amendments to Government Code Section 65852.2 provide that second dwelling units must also be exempt from the provisions of any City growth management plan. Accordingly, this ordinance exempts such units from its requirements.

• (§ 1, Ord. 769, eff. January 8, 2004)

By reason of the above set forth factors, the City has determined it is necessary and appropriate to enact a residential growth management plan (the "plan") for an additional 10 years.

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(§ 1, Ord. 769, eff. January 8, 2004)

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