Local architect has terminal frustration with City of Oxnard
Will Oxnard drive out a business older than the city and an architect nearly as old?
By George Miller
Is Oxnard becoming more “Business-friendly,” as we are told? You tell us …..
The architect told us: “After 37 years of designing and building in Oxnard, today I set a RECORD for a simple remodel first approval of $10,043.74 before we build anything. By the time we receive Final Approvals in about 7 to 9 months, we’ll have paid the City of Oxnard over $25,000 just in permit fees. Could be much higher.”
All this for 3700 sq. ft. of floor space on a 7000 sq. ft. lot- 50 X 140. This is not a WalMart, folks. It’s a tiny tortilla factory: Rancheria Tortillerita, which dates back to 1850, the year CA became a state.
The current building (shown below) was built before there was even an Oxnard- around 1900. It was practically falling apart while they were struggling to get a simple demolition permit needed to make it safe.
So far the city has charged his client more than he has!
George Miller is Publisher of Citizensjournal.us and a “retired” operations management consultant, active in civic affairs, living in Oxnard.
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Citizen’s Journal doesn’t do it’s home work very well….
Tell Carlos Sanchez to pay his outstanding bills before pursuing another design and architect.
We have plans drawing and submitted to the city and without talking to us or even terminating his contract with us, he decided to go with just another architect. His Violation keep getting extended for no other reason then he switches to a different design. Who is playing a game with the city?? Carlos Sanchez
Received from Oxnard Planning Dept 10:00 PM 5-2-16
George,
I’m sorry I missed your call Friday. My staff is pulling the permit
info for me so I can get a full understanding of the project request and permit type. The fees in the receipt you attached are the fees Council adopted in 2011. The Development Design Review permit is a codified permit type and the fee is adopted by resolution, but I will review the specific project with the staff to ensure all the fees are applicable to the actual permit request.
I’ll be in touch soon.
Hmmm, close to 10,000 people have read this already. We have a bunch of comments here and on the Facebook article:
https://www.facebook.com/citizensjournalVC/posts/1134445999952974
We haven’t heard back from the city yet, but our request for info/contact was acknowledged today. We will follow-up when we have more to report. We don’t have all sides of the story yet, but will keep trying.
And now that this has become public and embarrassed the city, the delays will stay piling up to the point that the project will never get done regardless of how much tribute the business forks over. Pr, they could move the factory to Arizona and start over for a fraction of the costs.
Insanity like these excessive permit fees (among dozens of other reasons) drives businesses and citizens out of the state. This California licensed general contractor and most of her extended family left the state in 2014. The only regrets are the family and friends left behind.
How many Tortilla’s will it take to Recover this investment? All I can say is that there was an elderly Lady in East Los Angeles that got around this by preparing fresh Tortilla’s and Tamales from her home kitchen. Everyone knew about but City Hall.
That sounds like the only way around this kind of governmental theft.