MOORPARK : Council to Discuss Growth Controls

Following through on a promise to come up with a new way to manage growth, the Moorpark City Council has scheduled a Jan. 3 meeting to discuss new growth control standards.

The council voted this fall to abandon a nearly decade-old ordinance that limited the number of homes that could be built each year.

Called Measure F, the ordinance was deemed legally indefensible by the city’s attorney this spring after a similar law in the city of Oceanside was struck down by the state Supreme Court.

Since 1993, a committee of local residents and city officials had tried to come up with an even stricter ordinance that would have taken effect when Measure F expires Dec. 31. However, the Oceanside case scuttled those plans.

Among items the council plans to discuss is a proposed requirement that developers meet community needs for such things as air quality, police services, fire services, emergency medical services, schools, libraries, parks, recreation, water supplies and roads.

The city’s General Plan, as well as state and federal environmental laws, already require that developers meet some of those basic criteria, but many residents feel that more protections are needed.

On Wednesday, the council certified a final environmental impact report for the 216-home Bollinger development planned for the city, and also approved plans to set up two ad hoc committees to work out development agreements for that project and the massive 3,221-home Hidden Creek Development being proposed for the northeast edge of the city by the Messenger Development Co.