City’s Building Slump May Mean Layoffs : Moorpark: So slow is development that planners have been assigned to other departments. And now officials have to consider letting some go.

Moorpark, the town that once was one of California’s fastest-growing cities, is seeing so few new homes built these days that city officials are considering laying off members of the planning department.

Moorpark is still the second fastest-growing city in Ventura County. But a four-year building slump has forced officials to assign city planners to work in other departments. Some are drawing up parking ordinances, or purchasing park benches, for instance.

Although city managers assure there is no lack of work for the employees, they said they are sorely lacking in new development fees that subsidized the planning department.

Traditionally, the planning department recoups the cost of its employees by charging developers fees for staff time to review building permits. Moorpark issued so many permits in the 1980s--about 1,900 in 1986 alone--that the city accumulated a $2-million surplus.

But since 1990, the city has issued only about 440 permits. As a result, the city’s planning department--with its full- and part-time staff of 16 planners, code enforcement officers and administrative assistants--has had to use the surplus to cover expenses. The surplus has shrunk to less than $150,000 and the city now faces the possibility of wiping out the surplus altogether, said Assistant City Manager Richard Hare.

“Layoffs are always a last resort, but we haven’t had any big new developments to process,” Hare said. “Something has to give.”

Rough estimates by city staff show that fees for permits and other revenue collected by the department account for only about 25% of the department’s existing budget, said Mayor Paul Lawrason. But Lawrason is confident that the city can avoid layoffs by shifting some planning department employees to other work.

“It may be an interim fix,” said Lawrason. “In a small city like ours, employees have to get used to doing things that don’t exactly fit their job description. With increasing development, we’ll likely need them again, but a shift isn’t all bad because they’ll get cross-training, making them more versatile.”

But Councilman Scott Montgomery said layoffs should be considered, no matter how uncomfortable the topic.

“We’re faced with the age-old problem of our expenses exceeding revenues, and we’re going to have to make some tough decisions,” he said.

Although the possibility of layoffs looms large because no new developments are likely to be built in the next year or two, members of the city’s planning staff offered no comment on the possible changes in their department.

Eloise Brown, a former City Council member and a frequent critic of city spending, said that if the personnel are not needed for planning then they should be laid off.

“If it’s not really planning, it shouldn’t be performed by a planner,” she said. “Maybe it should be the police department writing new ordinances on parking or a purchasing agent who buys our park benches.”

The City Council is reviewing the budget this week, and Lawrason said the council is likely to make a decision on budget cuts at its 7 p.m. Wednesday meeting at City Hall.