Wagon Wheel at heart of lawsuit against Oxnard

Holding on to hope that the Wagon Wheel will roll into the sunset once more, a historic preservation group is suing the City of Oxnard in an attempt to save the shuttered roadside attraction from the proverbial wrecking ball.

The lawsuit from the San Buenaventura Conservancy, filed last week in county superior court, alleges that city officials ignored the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) after deciding late last year to raze the motel and bowling alley off Highway 101.

“We didn’t want to drive by, seeing the buildings demolished, knowing we had one more avenue to follow,” says Stephen Schafer, the nonprofit conservancy’s president. “We appealed to the council and tried to make them aware of the fact that historic resources in California, under CEQA, are just as viable and important as any other environmental resource.”

Schafer’s appeal to save the defunct tourist attraction was denied in November by a 4-1 vote by the City Council, whose members upheld the Oxnard Village Specific Plan. Proposals for the development call for demolition of the Wagon Wheel and construction of 64 acres combining at least 1,500 dwelling units and commercial space up to 50,000 square feet.

It also proposes a series of archival installations - an on-site interpretive and photo display, oral history documentation, and perhaps even a collection of TV documentary specials - as a way of mitigating the likelihood of cultural impacts with the removal of the eight-building Wagon Wheel motel and its adjoining bowling center, together making up the popular western-themed spot designed by developer Bud Smith in the 1950s.

The conservancy’s lawsuit states that those mitigation measures don’t offer adequate compensation for the loss of the famed Oxnard site.

“Documenting a historic resource doesn’t mitigate the loss of a resource,” says Susan Brandt-Hawley, a CEQA law attorney from Glen Ellen brought on board by the conservancy.

She also adds that officials violated CEQA law because they improperly failed to examine other alternatives - like incorporating parts of the Wagon Wheel into the Oxnard Village Specific Plan - in their preparation of an environmental impact report.

“If you have a project with significant environmental impacts, it can’t be approved when there are feasible alternatives,” Brandt-Hawley said. “The Wagon Wheel needs some repair, but it’s something that’s been important to a lot of people for a long period of time. They (city officials) have to show it’s not financially infeasible.”

Schafer and the conservancy have pushed for a compromised project allowing for both new development and preservation of the Wagon Wheel.

“There’s so much flexibility in those 64 acres,” Schafer said. “Our argument is, if you cut the Wagon Wheel out (of the project), you can do everything you want to do. We don’t want to come across like we’re anti-development.”

One of the conservancy’s struggles has been convincing officials that the landmark Wagon Wheel is historic enough.

“The evidence is unequivocal that it’s historic,” Schafer adds, but “their argument from the very beginning has been, ‘It’s not historic and we want to demolish it.’ “

Oxnard’s Mayor Pro Tem Andres Herrera, one of the council members who voted for the Wagon Wheel demolition, says it was never the late Martin V. “Bud” Smith’s intent to let his creation fall into disrepair or to preserve it, either.

“I know the conservancy has been concerned with what they consider to be a historic landmark. That’s their perspective,” he said. “But I vividly recall … that the original plans the owner had never included preservation. I just don’t see the historical significance to a dilapidated hotel.”

Former city council member Tim Flynn, who cast the lone vote in support of the conservancy’s appeal, endorsed the group’s legal action against the city.

“I think it’s a good idea they pursue a lawsuit,” Flynn, whose council term ended in January, said. “It’s a real sad commentary on Oxnard’s leadership that they have to be forced to embrace progressive ideas.”

Flynn previously referred to San Diego’s Gaslamp District during deliberations on the Oxnard Specific Plan, citing that city’s historic quarter as a template for what benefits preservation can have for tourism and the local economy.

“In some communities, it’s just standard you preserve as much as you can,” Flynn says. “The bottom line is everybody knows that cities people want to go to are cities that have gone to great lengths to preserve their histories because it makes them unique. One would hope something like Wagon Wheel would remain as a kind of beacon in a sea of urban mess.”

Oxnard’s city attorney, Alan Holmberg, had not yet obtained a copy of the lawsuit and could not comment on the matter.

Schafer is optimistic the conservancy can win back the Wagon Wheel through the courts.

“When I look at the Wagon Wheel, I see a beautifully restored building,” he says. “We’re in a position now to say that this building is worth it, so we can look back in 20 years and say, ‘That was a good call.’ “   

paul@vcreporter.com