Vote on Ridgeline Construction Ban Delayed

Despite seven years of debate on the issue, the Moorpark City Council postponed a vote on an ordinance Wednesday night that would have prohibited building on the rugged ridgelines bordering the city, saying it needed more time.

The proposed hillside ordinance is much less restrictive than similar laws in Thousand Oaks and Simi Valley, Mayor Paul Lawrason said. Over the years developers and property owners in Moorpark had to fight off stricter limits and insert some exemptions to the proposed rules, Lawrason said.

“The important thing for a law like this is that it’s flexible,” he said.

Lawrason is concerned that a tougher ordinance would unfairly restrict property use by some landowners. Other council members agree, saying they want to prevent experiences such as that of a Thousand Oaks couple who were unable to build a house on the hilltop property they owned for 30 years because of that city’s strict hillside ordinance.

“That’s just not right,” Councilman Scott Montgomery said. “A family should be allowed to build on land that they own.”

Montgomery added that the exemptions in Moorpark’s proposed ordinance would permit owners of smaller parcels to build on their property while still allowing the city “to prevent our ridgeline views from being covered by tiled roofs.”

To protect against erosion, the proposed law would also limit the number of residences built on slopes between 20% and 50%--a perfectly vertical cliff has a grading of 100%. Under very rare circumstances, construction would be allowed on slopes that are greater than 50%.

The exceptions for building on steep slopes and on ridgelines were put into the proposed ordinance during the more than seven-year period that debate on the law waged.

It took until 1993 for the City Council to direct the Planning Commission to finally draw up the ordinance, and it took the Planning Commission until late last year to approve it and send it back to the council for final review. The council decided Wednesday night to discuss the issue in two weeks.

For a long time the hillside ordinance was seen by developers as a backhanded way to control growth. Most of the large housing developments pending before the city are planned for rugged hillside terrain. A strict hillside ordinance would make it difficult for those projects to go forward, developers said.

Modeled after a San Dimas law, the new and more flexible ordinance that will be considered by the council has met mostly with approval from developers.

Paul Bollinger, who is planning an upscale development of 216 residences in the hills on the northeast side of the city, said he has no problem with the new rules.

“I don’t see that they will interfere with what we are planning,” he said.

Gary Austin, vice president of Messenger Investment Corp., which plans to build 3,221 residences on the northeast boundary of the city, is the only developer to express concern about the ordinance. He said he wanted the council to postpone its vote and give him more time to review the new regulations.

Although Austin expressed support for the ordinance when it was passed by the Planning Commission, he said he needed time to review changes made to the rules since then.

“We were real comfortable with it, but there are some things that were changed and that makes me nervous,” he said.