CAMARILLO : Heritage Zone Rules Dictate Architecture

Buildings lining the Camarillo corridor along the Ventura Freeway from Las Posas Road to the top of the Conejo Grade appear to be made from the same mold, and that is by design.

Camarillo Planning Director Matthew (Tony) Boden said construction along the highway is governed by the city’s design guidelines, and materials are limited to tile, wood, stucco and colors in earthen tones.

Hoping to establish Camarillo as more than a rest stop between Los Angeles and points north, the city adopted an early Californian style in 1974.

The city borders California’s historic El Camino Real, the road connecting the missions of Santa Barbara and San Buenaventura to Los Angeles. The guidelines include the Heritage Zone, an area designated in 1972 as 500 feet on each side of the freeway and a 1,000-foot perimeter around each highway ramp.

Stan Daily, who served on the City Council from 1964 to 1976, recalls that the council unanimously agreed on the way it wanted Camarillo to look.

“We were all proud of our Spanish heritage as well as our city, and we wanted to make a statement about this area,” he said.

Daily, the grandson of one of Camarillo’s founding fathers, said the intent of the Heritage Zone has been accomplished.

The guidelines cover all commercial and office buildings and some condominiums and apartment buildings.

“The plan is not so rigid that it eliminates creativity,” Boden said. “We don’t want every building to look the same, and we want to encourage a mix of talent in Camarillo’s development. If someone comes up with a plan that meets the intent of the city’s design guidelines, it is likely we’ll approve it. We don’t preclude anything.”

He cites the Camarillo Office Project on the Ventura Freeway between Las Posas and Carmen Drive, the Alpha Beta store at Las Posas and Arneill Road and City Hall on Carmen as examples of the variety achieved while meeting the city’s design guidelines.

Single-family residences and industrial buildings, unless they border the freeway or are in a specific plan area, are exempt from the policy, but many developers are adhering to the guidelines.

“The Heritage policy has, in many ways, brought the community together,” Boden said. “It has prompted a sense of community pride and you’ll see it throughout Camarillo, that as buildings are refurbished, they are done so in keeping with the style we have set.”

Camarillo’s neighbor to the southeast, Thousand Oaks, adopted a similar policy in 1980. It is called the Precise Plans of Design, but it is not precise at all, City Planner Ellen Briggs said.

Under the plan, structures may be “compatible with the natural setting of the scenic and historic beauty and environment of the Conejo Valley in general, and the city of Thousand Oaks in particular.”

It calls for stucco, adobe, clay tile and earthen hues. Unlike Camarillo, however, Thousand Oaks includes all construction, including single-family structures.