MOORPARK : City Studies Plan to Preserve Landmarks

After nearly 10 years of fast-paced development, the Moorpark City Council has taken up the issue of how to preserve older, historically significant buildings in the city.

The council decided Wednesday to have its community development committee consider authorizing the Ventura County Cultural Heritage Board to oversee historical preservation in Moorpark.

The heritage board, whose seven members are appointed by county supervisors, originally proposed that the agency take the lead on historic preservation tasks in Moorpark when the city incorporated in 1983, said Pat Havens, a board member.

The agency already spearheads preservation efforts in the unincorporated areas of the county and in Oxnard, Simi Valley, Port Hueneme and Fillmore. Other cities in the county have delegated preservation duties to local groups.

But Moorpark city officials ignored the county heritage board’s repeated overtures until recently.

Don Reynolds, a management analyst for the city, said Moorpark officials were previously too busy getting the new city government up and running to focus on historic preservation.

“We were getting organized,” he said. “We were building up our staff to handle these issues.”

The heritage board would survey older buildings in the city and recommend to the council which structures should be designated as county cultural landmarks.

If a building is declared a cultural landmark, its owner cannot make any changes to it without the heritage board’s approval.

Potential cultural landmarks in Moorpark include the auditorium at Moorpark Community High School and a nearly 100-year-old adobe building south of Tierra Rejada Road, Havens said.