Government agencies agree to push for cooperative planning for Ventura County

The Southern California Association of Governments has accepted a joint proposal from the Civic Alliance and the Ventura Council of Governments to launch the first phase of a multiyear program to advance regional planning in Ventura County.

Titled the “Compact for a Sustainable Ventura County,” the project will involve community members in developing a set of scenarios for the future of the county based on alternative land use, housing, transportation and economic development patterns and policies. To achieve this, the association will provide the alliance and council with free consultant services estimated at a value of $150,000.

According to alliance member and Compact Working Group Chair Ron Bottorff, the project will involve the alliance, local governments, businesses and private institutions in moving toward the alliance’s goal of “mobilizing people and civic organizations to work together across boundaries to address the many challenges related to regional growth and sustainability.”

The proposal was previously endorsed by the Ventura County Board of Supervisors and eight of 10 cities in the county, and is aligned with the association’s mission of strategic planning for the growth of the six-county Southern California region, according to Peter Brandenburg, the association’s senior regional planner.

“We are striving to figure out how we’re going to accommodate another 6 million people by year 2035,” Brandenburg said, “and to plan for that in a way that links land use and transportation planning while maximizing people’s mobility and prosperity and the livability and sustainability of their communities.”

The team of consultants on the project includes Fregonese Calthorpe Associates and Solimar Research Group.

These consultants plan to work with Compact to involve communities across the county in workshops where they will create and evaluate the scenarios and identify a shared vision of what Ventura County residents want the region to look like over the next several decades.

The mission of the Ventura County Civic Alliance is to promote a healthy and sustainable future for the Ventura County region. An initiative of the Ventura County Community Foundation, the alliance is a coalition of civic leaders who are committed to bringing the economic, environ

mental and social equity interests of the region together to address priority community issues, increase civic engagement and build community leadership.

For more information, visit vccf.org/civicalliance.