VENTURA : Growth Plan Lowers New-Housing Limit

The Ventura City Council on Monday approved a growth plan that will reduce the number of new residential units allowed from an average of about 550 per year to 185.

By a unanimous vote, the slow-growth council approved the plan, which will allow the city to stay within its Comprehensive Plan limit of 102,000 residents by the year 2000.

In adopting the plan, the council lifted a moratorium on building permits that was enacted in January to give city planners time to determine how many housing units could be allowed without exceeding population limits established by the Comprehensive Plan update, which was approved in 1989.

Under the growth program, 100 of the 1,850 housing units to be allocated during the next decade will be set aside for downtown redevelopment area projects, 500 for affordable housing projects and 200 for two- to eight-unit developments.

The city will award building allocations based on a point system that rewards projects for such features as parks, bikeways, fire sprinklers, drought-resistant landscaping, affordability and innovative architectural design buildings.

Projects that fall under the city’s Affordable Housing Program guidelines are exempt from the point system but not from the allocation process.

In recent weeks, the city has allocated more than 80% of the affordable housing units set aside under the growth program.

However, no new construction will be allowed in the city until the council ends its water rationing plan.