Project Description
RICK is currently working on an update to the General Plan for the City of Murrieta, a growing community of 104,000 people. We are also working on an update to the City’s Climate Action Plan and Supplemental Environmental Impact Report (SEIR). During this effort, the RICK team is working with City staff to promote Murrieta’s vision to continue to build upon the great quality of life it currently has as a safe and family-oriented community, with top-ranked K-12 schools and recreational amenities. The plan for Murrieta aims to capitalize upon the creation of a new four-year State University campus in the city to establish a regional employment destination for medical and technology companies and to strengthen the Murrieta’s status as a regional retail center.
RICK recently completed the Downtown Murrieta Specific Plan, which covered 350 acres. It was a significant update to a plan developed in 2000, which had limited success in encouraging new development due to restrictive development standards. The plan was developed around a series of guiding principles, which included the creation of a cultural and government center, an attractive downtown, historic character and pedestrian activity, proactive economic development, sustainable development and open space preservation, mobility choices, and attractive residential neighborhoods with diverse housing options. The new Specific Plan divided the downtown into four distinct neighborhoods with new development standards and design guidelines that encouraged a more distinctive and intensive development program. The planning program included an extensive public outreach program. These neighborhoods included the following: the Civic Center (with civic uses and areas for public private partnership with office buildings), museums and limited commercial, Washington Avenue (which will serve as the city’s main street and entertainment district), the Jefferson and Juniper areas (which will have high-density residential neighborhoods designed around intersecting paseos), and the Creek Neighborhood (which focuses on creating a linear park along Murrieta Creek with low-density development).