Search "new construction Moorpark" and you'll keep landing on the same address. 4890 Beltramo Ranch Road, the sales office for KB Home's Beltramo Ranch, sits at the center of nearly every listing that fits the filter. Widen the search to include the surrounding cities and the results multiply. Narrow it back to Moorpark and they collapse to almost nothing.
That's not a data problem. It's the market working exactly as Moorpark voters designed it to work a decade ago.
The Boundary Voters Drew In 2016
In 1998, most Ventura County cities put growth boundary measures on the ballot after residents gathered signatures demanding it. Moorpark's city council went a different way and declined to place the measure before voters. Residents had to organize the petition drive themselves, and around the same period they were also collecting signatures to overturn the council's approval of the Hidden Creek development, a large housing project proposed behind Moorpark College, according to SOAR's history of the Moorpark measure. Two fights, one instinct: keep the decision about where the city ends in the hands of the people who live inside it.
That instinct eventually produced Measure E in November 2016, which readopted and extended Moorpark's City Urban Restriction Boundary, commonly called the CURB, through December 31, 2050. It passed with 74 percent of the vote, one of the highest margins recorded for a SOAR-style measure anywhere in the county. Under the resolution, the boundary cannot be moved, altered, or revoked before that date except by another public vote or a formal city council process spelled out in the ordinance itself.
Translated into plain terms: the agricultural and open land ringing Moorpark, the Tierra Rejada Valley to the south, the hillsides to the west, is off the table for rezoning until 2050 unless voters say otherwise. New subdivisions can't spread outward the way they did in the 1980s and 90s, when large specific plan developments replaced former farmland and the city grew by more than 500 percent in its first decade after incorporation. Whatever gets built next has to fit inside a line that was drawn nine years ago and isn't scheduled to move for another 24.
What's Actually Left Inside The Line
This is why the search results keep repeating. Beltramo Ranch, which KB Home opened in April 2025, is close to the only active ground-up single-family community in the city right now. Homes there start from the low $1 millions, with three floor plans ranging from roughly 1,900 to 2,400 square feet, situated near downtown Moorpark and its handful of boutique shops and restaurants, according to KB Home's grand opening announcement. The city's own project page confirms it as one of the developments still moving through Moorpark's pipeline.
Beyond that, the options thin out fast. The Moorpark Highlands specific plan, sited north of Charles Street along the Spring Road extension, is approved for up to 450 single-family lots and one multifamily neighborhood of up to 102 units, but it's been sitting as an approved-not-fully-built plan for years, per the city's specific plans page. And the North Ranch project near Gabbert Road, a 139-unit development adjacent to the 755-unit Hitch Ranch community, cleared the city council on a 5-0 vote back in January 2023, according to reporting in the Moorpark Acorn. Most of the neighborhood names buyers see today when they browse Moorpark, Peach Hill, Campus Park, Hitch Ranch, Moorpark Highlands, Virginia Colony, are already built out or nearly there. Beltramo Ranch is the newest name on that list, and there isn't an obvious next one waiting behind it.
Here's a rough map of where the city's remaining supply actually sits:
| Project | Status as of 2026 | Scale |
|---|---|---|
| Beltramo Ranch (KB Home) | Actively selling since 2025 | Three floor plans, 1,908–2,428 sq ft |
| Moorpark Highlands | Approved specific plan, largely unbuilt | Up to 450 single-family lots, 102 multifamily units |
| North Ranch | Approved January 2023, adjacent to Hitch Ranch | 139 units |
| Downtown Specific Plan Update | Under Planning Commission review in 2026 | Rezoning framework, no unit count set yet |
Why The City Is Looking Downtown Instead Of Outward
The last row in that table is the interesting one. Because Moorpark can't expand its boundary without another public vote, the city is now doing what a boxed-in city does: looking inward. In 2026, the Planning Commission has been working through an update to the Downtown Specific Plan, with an environmental review addendum tied to the General Plan 2050 EIR that the council originally certified in 2023. A hearing scheduled for June 2026 considered amendments to the general plan land use map, the specific plan, and the zoning ordinance covering the downtown core, according to the city's own public hearing notice.
That's not a coincidence sitting next to the CURB deadline. It's the direct consequence of it. When a city can't add units by annexing farmland, the only remaining lever is rezoning what's already inside the line, usually toward higher density near existing commercial corridors. Whatever the Downtown Specific Plan Update ultimately allows will matter more to Moorpark's housing supply over the next decade than anything happening on the city's edges, because the edges are locked.
What This Does To Prices Right Now
The scarcity shows up in the numbers, though not in the direction you'd expect from a supply-constrained market. Over the three months ending in May 2026, Moorpark's median sale price sat at roughly $1.0 million, up just 0.9 percent year over year, while the median price per square foot actually fell 5.9 percent over the same period, per market data reported by Redfin. Movoto's figures for June 2026 show a similar pattern: a median list price around $1.02 million, down 6 percent from the prior month and from June 2025, with price per square foot at $450, down 2 percent year over year. Homes were selling in a median of 51 days in June 2026, essentially flat with the year before.
Read those numbers side by side and a specific story emerges. Sale counts actually rose, 77 homes sold in May 2026 versus 69 in May 2025, so buyers are still transacting. But per-square-foot values are softening even as the city's ability to add new inventory stays frozen. That combination usually means one of two things is happening: either the mix of what's selling has shifted toward larger, lower-cost-per-foot homes, or genuine competition for the scarce new product isn't translating into premium pricing the way scarcity stories usually predict. Either way, a boundary that restricts land supply is not, by itself, producing runaway appreciation in Moorpark's resale market. It is producing a market where almost everything transacting is existing housing stock, and where the handful of new options carry an outsized share of buyer attention relative to their actual number.
What This Means If You're Comparing Cities
If you're weighing Moorpark against Camarillo, Somis, or unincorporated pockets of the Tierra Rejada Valley, the comparison isn't really about school ratings or commute times. It's about which cities have locked their boundaries, for how long, and what that means for where new supply can physically appear over the life of a mortgage. Several other Ventura County cities passed their own SOAR-style measures around the same era, and each one carries its own expiration date and its own carve-outs. Moorpark's is unusually specific: a 2050 deadline, a 74 percent mandate, and a documented history of citizens fighting for the vote rather than having it handed to them by their council.
That history is worth knowing before you assume Moorpark will simply keep expanding the way it did in the 1980s. It won't, not without another ballot measure, and nothing in the current record suggests one is coming before 2050.
A Few Questions Worth Asking Before You Decide
Does the growth boundary affect what I can do with my own lot, like adding an ADU? No. The CURB governs whether agricultural and open-space land outside the city can be rezoned for new development. It has no bearing on permitted additions, accessory dwelling units, or remodels on parcels already inside city limits.
Could the boundary move before 2050? Only through another public vote or the specific council procedure written into the 2016 resolution itself. Nothing currently pending would change that timeline.
Is Beltramo Ranch really the only place to buy new in Moorpark? It's the primary active ground-up community as of 2026. Moorpark Highlands remains approved but largely unbuilt, and its timing depends on decisions the city hasn't finalized.
If you're trying to figure out what a locked growth boundary actually means for your own timeline, whether you're comparing Moorpark to a neighboring city or trying to understand what's realistically available inside that 2050 line, I'm happy to walk through the specifics with you. Reach out to Aimee Mckinley and let's talk about what fits.
