MOORPARK : Hearing Tonight on Slow-Growth Plan

Moorpark residents will have their first opportunity at a City Council meeting tonight to speak out on a proposed new ordinance to limit growth.

The council is expected to adopt an ordinance after a series of public hearings over the next several months. The ordinance will take the place of Measure F, a growth-limiting initiative that expires at the end of 1995.

Residents adopted Measure F in 1986, during a decade when Moorpark’s population more than tripled, increasing from 8,000 people in 1980 to 25,000 in 1990.

Since 1990, growth has come to a near standstill in the city, but local officials say the reasons have more to do with economic reasons than the restrictive growth measure.

“Nobody is building in a down economy,” said Jim Aguilera, Moorpark’s director of community development. “There’s really no pressure for development.”

But he said the city wants to be ready when the economy rebounds.

“The ordinance is meant to kick in when the economy rolls around and we again see pressure for growth,” he said.

As with Measure F, the new slow-growth ordinance is expected to limit the number of houses built to no more than 500 in any given year until 2010, when the city will reach its planned maximum population of 41,000.

City officials expect that it will take at least two months of public debate to develop a final draft of the ordinance.

In addition to the ordinance, the City Council will discuss a measure to protect the area’s ridgelines from development. The meeting begins at 7 p.m. in the council chambers of the Moorpark Community Center, 799 Moorpark Ave.