Council, School Board to Cooperate on Proposal to Build Homes

Years after they went to war over a small piece of downtown Moorpark, the City Council and the school board may now work together to build homes on the property.

Meeting for the first time in about five years, the two panels on Wednesday agreed to create a joint committee that will review the school district’s plans to create a new neighborhood of about 80 homes south of Casey Road.

The land in question once stood at the center of a bitter legal fight between the two panels, with the city suing the school district to seek the right to buy the district-owned property at a discount and use it for a park. In 1991, the state Supreme Court ruled in the district’s favor.

The proposed housing project is vitally important to the district, which hopes to sell 15 acres to an Agoura Hills developer and use that money to help pay for construction of a new elementary school on Casey Road.

But council members said Wednesday that the deal could also be valuable to the city, helping its efforts to revitalize downtown Moorpark.

“It’s just logical: One way to bring people downtown is build more homes there,” said Councilman Chris Evans.

City and school representatives have discussed the plans before. But they disagreed over key items, including how close together the homes would be built, the possible need for a sound wall along nearby railroad tracks and improvements to the intersection of High Street and Moorpark Road. City officials also said the project would require an amendment to the city’s general plan, a procedural step the school district considered unnecessary.

District trustees said that in spite of those past conversations, they went into Wednesday’s meeting without a clear idea of what the current City Council thought of their plans. They said they were pleased with the response.

“It really encouraged us to hear that there was some interest on that site, which we’d never heard before,” said trustee Gary Cabriales.

The success of the project would provide an immense boost to the district. Although the selling price has not been set, trustee Clint Harper said the board hoped to get $2 million or $2.5 million for the property, which it would sell to Braemar, a home developer.

Adjacent to the housing project, the district plans to build a $7-million elementary school on the site of the city’s former high school. Construction will be funded in part with a $6.8-million loan the district took out in 1996.

But the cash-strapped district secured the loan without specifying a clear way to repay it. The first repayment installment is due this summer, said trustee David Pollock. And the need for a sixth elementary school hasn’t gone away.

“That’s the dilemma we’re in,” Pollock said. “We have to build the school. The kids are already here.”

Trustees said Thursday they hoped the district and city would be able to work out compromises to satisfy the city’s concerns about traffic circulation without making the project too expensive to develop.

Evans said the city should assist as best it can, but not at the risk of compromising its development standards.

“The bottom line is, should the city support the school district in helping them make the maximum amount from this business opportunity? I would say, ‘yes,’ ” he said. “Does that mean we should throw aside our standards? No.”