The Regional Council of the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) approved an award of $250,000 to the City of Moorpark for the purposes of updating the Downtown Specific Plan. This award was the result of a highly competitive grant that Community Development staff had applied for associated with SCAG’s Housing Infill on Public and Private Lands (HIPP) Program. SCAG received a total of 21 applications and awarded 11, committing $8 million to Southern California communities. “We appreciate SCAG’s recognition that walkable downtowns are worth investing in, and SCAG’s investment in Moorpark will help us prepare a specific plan that is thoughtful, thorough, and tailored for Moorpark,” said Mayor Chris Enegren.
The City of Moorpark will utilize these funds to prepare a comprehensive update to the City’s 1998 Downtown Specific Plan that governs High Street and Moorpark Avenue, covering 285 properties. In addition to implementing the goals and policies associated with Downtown Moorpark as part of the recently approved General Plan 2050, the project will establish meaningful design criteria for both private properties and public realms Downtown, encourage infill housing and mixed-use development in the area, and establish objective development standards and permit streamlining measures. The project is expected to begin at the end of the year and will include directed community outreach to residents and businesses.
Community Development Director Carlene Saxton remarked, “the importance of Downtown was a reoccurring theme throughout the General Plan update. We are pleased that the SCAG HIPP Grant allows us to translate this community-driven interest into tangible actions so shortly following the adoption of our General Plan 2050. We are grateful to the staff at SCAG for this opportunity and look forward to working with them as we develop this plan for Downtown Moorpark.”
The HIPP Pilot Program is one of the three funding areas in the Programs to Accelerate Transformative Housing (PATH) program, which is part of the SCAG REAP 2.0 Program Framework. The HIPP Pilot Program makes $8,000,000 available for projects meeting the REAP 2.0 and PATH program guidelines and accelerating infill development of housing, especially affordable housing, by 1) identifying, accessing and readying infill public and private lands for development with housing with an affordability component, and 2) completing land use regulations for infill large areas and corridors increasing capacity to achieve housing and supportive amenities and services. The HIPP Pilot Program focuses on 1) scaling up development of publicly and privately owned lands with affordable or mixed-income housing and ancillary neighborhood businesses and supporting infrastructure, and 2) supporting entities with regulatory land use control to implement corridor-wide and area-wide infill housing initiatives based in justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion.