Committee approves staff recommendation to endorse Ventura County regional consolidated plan and annual action plan for HUD submission

The committee voted 3-0 April 8 to approve staff recommendations endorsing the draft Ventura County Regional Consolidated Plan (2025–2029), the regional Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing Choice (2025–2029), and the 2025–2026 annual action plan for submission to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

Interim Housing Director Brenda Lopez said Oxnard partnered with Ventura County as the lead agency to retain a consultant that drafted the plans; both documents were included in the staff report as draft attachments. "Both items are actually attachments to the staff report. They are in draft format. So the city of Oxnard partnered with the county of Ventura as the lead agency to retain a consultant, did an RFP process, and the consultant has drafted both plans," Lopez said. The plans establish regional goals and a framework for collaboration on housing and fair housing issues for the next four to five years.

Staff recommended several actions: conduct a public hearing to receive comments; approve the consolidated plan and analysis of impediments; authorize the city manager to incorporate public input into the final documents; approve the 2025–26 annual action plan and incorporate final HUD allocations; permit budgetary adjustments within defined thresholds; and authorize the city manager to execute HUD agreements and related subrecipient and interdepartmental contracts for implementation.

Committee members asked whether any disclosure would be required if council members or their spouses had financial interests in entities that might receive grant funds. City attorney staff said disclosure is not required unless an individual had applied for the funding. Staff also listed a range of potential grant recipients and programs in the recommendation, including city departments, the Housing Authority, Shelter Resources, Coalition for Family Harmony, Turning Point Foundation, Mercy House and United Way of Ventura County; staff said the specific list is the range of potential subrecipients included in the program recommendations and that "unless one of the members of this committee has an interest in one of these, then there would be no issue with participation."

There were no public speakers on the item. Chair McArthur moved approval of the recommendation, the motion was seconded, and the clerk recorded a 3-0 vote (Committee member Perez: yes; Committee member Perallo: yes; Chair McArthur: yes). The committee's approval authorizes staff to incorporate public input and proceed with finalizing the documents for HUD submission and to implement the annual action plan following HUD allocation and internal budget adjustments within the authorized thresholds.

Staff noted the plans will include a needs assessment, market analysis and analyses of fair housing issues such as segregation, concentrated poverty and disparities in access to opportunity; staff will return any material changes resulting from public input for final approval as required by HUD.