Our Well Planned & Designed Community
We're creating "smart growth" community plans that streamline regulations yet preserve our heritage and promote housing and the best building standards.
Community Partner
"The city is on a path to establish consistent design standards through deliberate Community Planning. Ventura's unique historic characteristics are the foundation of the adopted Downtown Specific Plan with its AuthentiCity theme. The context of Ventura's neighborhoods still needs to be preserved with Community Specific Plans and Form Based Codes, and a citywide Historic Inventory survey. Our citizens are clearly communicating their desire to preserve our neighborhoods and authentic context.
Ensured good urban design
- Established clear design and improved building standards for quality development with new Downtown Specific Plan
- Set new development standards that bring more clarity to the development process
- Redesigned 232-home Hails site to include one-acre park and greater variety of housing types; 172-condo Renaissance Walk project to make it more pedestrian friendly; and 300-unit Harbor Village project to create public access and greater architectural variety instead of ten identical buildings
- Enlivened pedestrian experience and street corner infrastructure by Public Art Program commissioning of five "Downtown Streetscape Project" artists to transform Main Street utility boxes into artworks
Met diverse needs with a range of housing types
- Focused review of new housing proposals with new Housing Approval Program
- Approved 900 new homes, double any fi gure since 1997 - with 1,000 more homes currently being planned
- Required 15% of new homes be affordable to low-to-moderate- income families
- Broke ground for Downtown Renaissance Walk project to add 172 condos downtown
- Applied for state tax credit financing for WAV/ Working Artists Ventura live/work housing
Invested in and preserved cherished neighborhoods
- Approved ten historic properties for Mills Act tax-breaks-for-preservation
- Completed a survey of historic resources in downtown
- Sparked investment of $10.7 million in public and $38.6 million in private construction funds in Ventura's older neighborhoods (Downtown, Midtown and Westside) over the past two years
The Road Ahead
- Begin construction of:
- Working Artists Ventura (WAV) downtown
- Farm worker housing (60 units) in east Ventura
- Establish development standards for each neighborhood:
- Victoria Avenue Plan
- Main Street and Thompson Boulevard
- Saticoy & Wells Community Plan
- Westside/North Ventura Avenue Plan and Redevelopment
- Develop more private/public partnerships to address affordable housing
- Complete design guidelines booklet for sidewalks, utility boxes, alleys and parkways