Proposal for 11-Screen Film Complex Faces Opposition : Camarillo: The city’s staff says the 2,780-seat facility lacks adequate parking. Neighbors tell concerns about noise and traffic ‘at all hours.’

A proposal to build an 11-screen movie theater in Camarillo has run into opposition from residents living near the proposed facility and from city officials who say the project does not have adequate parking for patrons.

The effort by Pardee Construction Co. to build the proposed 2,780-seat United Artists complex was first considered by the city Planning Commission earlier this month, but action was delayed until tonight’s meeting to give the developer time to address the commission’s questions about parking and design.

“I think the concerns regarding the architecture have been largely resolved,” Camarillo Senior Planner Bob Burrow said Monday. “The sticking point remains with the issues surrounding parking.”

Burrow said Pardee officials have modified the 39,700-square-foot building’s design to be more like buildings in the adjoining Pardee Plaza by removing a parapet and extending roof lines.

Still to be resolved is the issue of parking at the movie complex.

Planning commissioners have balked at a proposal for the off-hours use of an existing parking lot immediately south of the proposed complex because it would force patrons to cross Verdugo Way in the middle of the block.

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The city planning staff has countered with a similar proposal but one that would involve Pardee building a new lot on undeveloped land at the southwest corner of Verdugo Way and Camino Ruiz.

“One problem was that we didn’t like the idea that theater patrons would have to cross the street without a crosswalk or signal,” Burrow said. “We saw it as a potential safety problem.”

Another suggestion of the planning staff was to reduce the overall number of seats at the complex by 208--an idea that Pardee officials have so far resisted. Additionally, Pardee has suggested amending a section of the development agreement to limit monitoring of traffic and parking at the theater to 12 months.

“It is our intent and in our best interests as landowners . . . to promptly and efficiently solve traffic problems which may arise once the theater opens,” Willard B. Teller, Pardee’s Ventura County’s project manager, said in a Nov. 10 letter to the city.

“United Artists has categorically stated they will be most cooperative in resolving parking issues which otherwise negatively affect their business,” Teller added.

Teller could not be reached for comment Monday.

But according to Burrow, the city planning staff believes that a monitoring period of more than a year is necessary.

“We think that a year’s monitoring will not allow us to accurately record what kind of traffic and parking problems that may exist at the complex,” Burrow said, adding that the proposed development agreement calls for parking and traffic to be monitored indefinitely.

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But as the Planning Commission prepares to wrestle with the proposal, some nearby homeowners have already expressed strong opposition.

According to Craig L. Huntington, spokesman for a property management company representing the Fairfield II Homeowners Assn., the movie theater and 70-unit housing tract are not compatible uses.

“When this tract was sold, the buyers were told that the vacant land was zoned for large office/commercial use,” Huntington said in a Sept. 20 letter to city officials. “An 11-screen theater complex would cause so much noise and traffic at all hours of the day and night that it is simply not an acceptable neighbor for a residential community.”

Likewise, Via Calderon residents Richard and Marie McMillen said in a Oct. 9 letter to city officials that development of a movie theater would ruin their neighborhood.

“An 11-screen movie theater would be absolute hell to pay in this area,” Richard McMillen wrote. “We have all the traffic from the apartment complex and the industrial area across the street. I don’t think the area (can) take much more.”

The Planning Commission meeting will begin at 7:30 p.m. at City Hall, 601 Carmen Drive.