Transportation officials, city leaders and open space advocates called for a united effort to meet recent state laws aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions during a town hall meeting in Camarillo last month.

About 200 people attended the SOAR and Sustainable Community Strategies conference at the John Spoor Broome Library on the California State University Channel Islands campus on Sept. 24.

The Ventura-based nonprofit SOAR (Save Open Space and Agriculture Resources) was one of the conference’s sponsors.

Despite years of environmental protection efforts, California is one of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, byproducts of industry, vehicles and landfills. Greenhouse gases contribute to global warming, which in turn produces changes in rain patterns, storm severity and sea level.

To reduce California’s contribution of greenhouse gases, the state passed the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, AB 32. The law aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020—a 25 percent reduction— through market incentives and other means. The new regulations will go into effect January 2012.

A companion law passed in 2008, SB 375, will further reduce production of greenhouse gases by setting targets for vehicle emissions and thwarting urban sprawl through community design guidelines.

Ventura County Supervisor Linda Parks said the laws complement county policy and so-called SOAR laws that aim to stop the development of farmland and open space without voter approval. Protection of the billion dollar agriculture industry in Ventura County, Parks said, benefits the economy and environment and provides residents with a better quality of life and higher property values.

Parks and other open space advocates said the recent state legislation harmonizes with local SOAR laws that inhibit urban sprawl.

In 1995 and 1998, Ventura County voters approved laws that preserve open space and farmland. The laws require county residents to vote on whether development can take place on open space between cities and in the county’s unincorporated areas.

Karen Schmidt, director of the nonprofit Save Open Space and Agriculture Resources, said the climate and people benefit from the preservation of open space and farmland. Schmidt said locally grown food means fewer trucks on the road emitting noxious gases into the air.

Schmidt said protecting farmland from development “may come to naught,” however, if everyone—from state lawmakers to community volunteers—doesn’t work together.

“We are just one of the players, one of the institutions, that need to be at the table,” she said

The 2008 law, SB 375, requires California’s 18 metropolitan planning organizations—collections of city and county governments throughout the state— to prepare a plan, known as a sustainable communities strategy, intended to encourage residents to get out of vehicles and walk. The plan also aims to help the regional planning organizations draft likeminded laws that affect transportation, housing and land use.

Hasan Ikhrata, director of Southern California Association of Governments, the metropolitan planning organization for Ventura and five other counties, said he’s charged with developing the association’s sustainable communities strategy and that it will take collaboration among “all players” to make it successful.

Ikhrata urged passage of a county transportation tax.

Ventura County voters may have turned down a transportation tax in the past because they didn’t want to attract new residents, but growth is occurring nonetheless, so it’s better to prepare for it, he said.

Southern California is expected to grow by 6 million in the coming years. The same study projects 200,000 new residents for Ventura County, Ikhrata said.

Darren Kettle, director of the Ventura County Transportation Commission and the Ventura Council of Governments, a body that represents the county and its 10 cities, said local governments “have no choice. SB 375 is a law.”

Kettle said the agencies joined in forming an ad-hoc committee to investigate whether local government or the Southern California Association of Governments should form a sustainable communities strategy.

Forming such a plan could be costly, Kettle said, and would involve other government agencies.

Kettle expects the committee to make a recommendation in November.

During a break in the threehour conference, Camarillo resident Diana Troik said she realizes how “absolutely critical” SOAR laws have been in protecting open space.

“If you don’t want it to turn into Orange County, you’ve got to be proactive, and SOAR has done some of that,” said Troik, a former Los Angeles resident.

Troik agreed that the county is fragmented by geopolitics and that some cities have a narrow perspective, which are key obstacles to local agencies working together to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and better the environment.

“We all impact each other,” Troik said.