| The following is a VERY informal phone survey conducted by Roy Prince [ OxnardRENAISSANCE.ORG ] in early September 2017.
While most Ventura County (VC) cities have about one planner per 10-12,000 – Oxnard has one planner per 34,000 people. Other VC cities have about three times the number of planners per resident than does Oxnard. Does Oxnard have adequate planning staff to handle both the current workload and future planning? |
Click the image below to download a PDF copy. |
Downtown Oxnard and Pink Zones: At a recent DITF meeting, Able Magana mentioned that the owner of the Vogue theater building had been approached by a City employee. The owner claims he was told that, as the 20-year agreement had expired, “would you please tear down those 6 spaces facing west on B Street”. That…
ROBUST GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT WITHOUT MANDATING PARKING What happens when you get rid of minimum parking requirements in a downtown district while also adding 4,500 people to the downtown? Many would suggest that adding so many people in a short time while removing parking minimums would be bad for businesses because parking spaces would be…
June 28, 2018 – minor edit and update While I have been discussing the lack of planners in Oxnard…the real issue is chronic understaffing and Economic Development. Oxnard cannot develop economically without enough qualified planners (chronic understaffing) to carry the workload. Oxnard needs 20 to 25 planners but currently has only 7 or 8 staff planners. How can…
Once obsolete, these staples of city life are making a comeback Until just a few years ago, a ‘capilé’ would have been as unfamiliar to Lisbonites as to those outside of Portugal. Once a staple local tipple, made from maidenhair fern leaf syrup and essence of orange blossom, it slipped out of people’s consciousness as…
Over two years ago, Barcelona set the transportation world aflutter when it announced it would be attempting to reinvent parts of its city by developing a Superblock system by transforming targeted street grids to prioritize people over cars. On selected small street networks large parts of intersections and roadways would be taken back for parks…
The Public Realm Complete streets are more than bike lanes, crosswalks, sidewalks, and vehicle lanes; they are buildings that engage the people in the right of way. Well-designed plazas, squares, and greens are framed by landscape design and architecture that relates to local culture, history, and climate. New urbanists have long advanced the idea that…