Landowners Suggest Sites for CSU : Development: The meeting in Oxnard is billed as the last chance for the public to propose campus locations.

Ventura County residents and landowners Friday proposed Cal State University campus sites ranging from a takeover of Camarillo State Hospital to sharing land with a proposed 3,000-house development in Santa Paula.

At a meeting in Oxnard--billed by Cal State officials as the last chance to propose sites for a planned four-year university in the county--two property owners said they would donate land for the university in exchange for rights to develop the remainder of their parcels.

The landowners include Arnold Dahlberg, who wants to build 3,000 luxury houses and two golf courses at Adams Canyon Ranch north of California 126 and west of California 150 in Santa Paula, and John Reynolds, a descendant of the Lloyd family, which owns a 3,000-acre cattle ranch north of the city of Ventura. Reynolds said his family has no specific development proposal yet.

A representative of the McLaughlin family, which owns land next to the Lusk Co. property near the Ventura Harbor that the university tried to buy in 1986, said both his family and the Lusk Co. would sell if they could get zoning changes that would allow them to develop other portions of their land.

Charles J. Conway Jr., a lawyer and member of the Hugo McGrath family, said the McGraths are willing to talk about their 1,100 acres of agricultural land in a proposed greenbelt area at Gonzales Road and Harbor Boulevard near Oxnard. And Stan Whisenhunt, a consultant who suggested property in northeast Ventura known as the Sudden Ranch site, said at least five of the parcel’s 11 owners are willing to negotiate.

But the day’s most unusual proposal came from Camarillo resident Arla Crane, who said she also represented 26 other Camarillo residents. Crane suggested that the university use the state hospital as a university campus.

The employees and 1,100 patients now at the hospital could become the essence of a sort of teaching hospital for the university’s programs in special education, counseling and guidance, she said.

The hospital treats the mentally ill and developmentally disabled.

“The patients are the very best asset,” she said. “And you don’t have to buy the land; you already own it.”

Cal State Vice Chancellor John Smart said, however, that the university would not consider a “mixed-use facility.”

“That would not be in the best interest of CSU or the students,” he said.

In addition, representatives of the Navy base at Point Mugu argued against properties such as Camarillo State Hospital and Ormond Beach that would fall within flight paths of Navy aircraft or high-noise areas.

The property owners’ presentations to Cal State officials and the Site Selection Advisory Committee represented the most recent step in a process that has taken years.

The university first chose the Lusk property, but when negotiations broke off, the Ventura City Council suggested Taylor Ranch, west of Ventura.

When support for that site eroded this summer, university officials reopened the site-selection process, choosing 37 members of the public, city representatives and county planners.

A subcommittee of the larger body developed a rating system to rank the properties, eliminating any property of less than 200 acres or east of the Conejo Grade.

Cal State’s consulting firm, EIP Associates of Sacramento, will use the rating system to narrow the field to about eight sites by the next advisory committee meeting, scheduled for Sept. 7.

The university will take the committee on a bus tour of prospective sites Sept. 21. Smart said he hopes to have a maximum of four sites that will require environmental impact reports. Taylor Ranch will be among the final sites considered, officials have said.