Wake up RiverPark
Developers need to get a clue, and a geography lesson
08/09/2007
How completely absurd can the backers of Oxnard’s RiverPark development get?
A recent e-mail sent to the VC Reporter promoted a series of events in the massive development intended to foster the project’s burgeoning community. Independently, the RiverPark Alive series is an encouraging sign that developers SheaHomes, Centex Homes, and Standard Pacific Homes hope to foster neighborhood bonds in the RiverPark complex. But taken in context, the series — and the marketing materials accompanying it — remind us that the developers are doing their best to pretend that RiverPark is not part of the city of Oxnard.
RiverPark is the massive project in Northwest Oxnard just across Highway 101 from the Esplanade shopping center and separated from the unincorporated El Rio neighborhood by Vineyard Avenue. When construction is complete, the project will feature 1,800 homes, 1,000 apartments, a city and county fire station, two new public elementary schools and a public middle school, an 880,000-square-foot “lifestyle center” called the collection, a hotel and a convention center. When the collection is complete, the glorified shopping mall could feature a Whole Foods market or similar establishment, outdoor shopping and a controversial new multiplex movie theater.
RiverPark’s real master plan may not be to house thousands of residents in its new neighborhoods, but to pretend it isn’t part of the city of Oxnard. Sadly, those unfamiliar with the geographic realities of RiverPark may also be left slack-jawed when they realize that nothing about RiverPark is as it appears on the Web site, riverparklife.com.
Take, for example, the click-button advertisement on the Web site linking to directions to RiverPark and information on a RiverPark Alive gift. That beautiful, scenic vista you see? The one of a Mediterranean climate with a quaint downtown scene, a pristine beach and a historic pier stretching out into tranquil waters?
Yeah, that’s Downtown Ventura. And it’s not Ventura as seen from RiverPark. It’s Ventura as seen from Ventura. Specifically, as seen from Grant Park, a spot much closer to the Ventura River and not the Santa Clara, which runs adjacent to RiverPark and inspired its name. In fact, the view, whose picture is repeated two other places on the Web site, comes from a vantage point about 12 miles away from RiverPark.
Of course, you wouldn’t know that looking at the directions to RiverPark given if you click the button. First of all, the map is a comical representation of the Ventura County coastline. While not drawn to scale, it shows RiverPark just over Highway 101 from the beach. In addition to a misrepresentation of the layout of Oxnard Boulevard (by the way, if you’re coming from the east it’s best to exit at Vineyard, even though you might have to actually see RiverPark’s neighbors), it makes it look like the ocean is immediately south of the freeway.
As a matter of fact, there is an entire city — Ventura County’s largest and most diverse — between the freeway and the beach. Interestingly, that city’s name doesn’t appear on the directions, even though it has jurisdiction over RiverPark.
Neither residents of Oxnard nor Ventura should be happy about this. Oxnard locals should be outraged that their city is effectively being erased from the RiverPark map and mentality, and Venturans should be angry that their city’s scenic beauty is being used to market and promote a development whose tax dollars will go into another town’s coffers.
True, at its grand opening in March, RiverPark was touted as “a whole world in one place.” So, perhaps the developers shouldn’t be faulted for their honesty. Then again, if the “whole world” is anything like Earth, it would be incredibly diverse and full of people with different skin tones. Oddly, the vast majority of the people in the photos throughout the RiverPark Web site suggest that everyone in RiverPark’s world is light skinned and of European descent.
Yet, according to a May 2006 estimate from the California Department of Finance, only 42.08 percent of the city’s 200,000 estimated residents were white. Asian Americans accounted for 7.39 percent, 4.72 percent identified as two or more races, 3.78 percent were black 1.26 percent were Native Americans, 0.41 percent were Pacific Islanders, and 40.36 percent were identified as “other” races. Additionally, 66.22 percent of Oxnard residents of any race also identified as Hispanic or Latino.
That’s not quite the picture RiverPark’s backers seem to be painting of their community. At least, you wouldn’t guess that such diversity exists in Oxnard looking at RiverPark’s Web site.
Perhaps reality and truthful advertising are overrated. RiverPark’s developers seem to think so. But they might want to acknowledge that there is a city, a county, and a world outside of RiverPark.
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