Hitch Ranch

The plan divides the housing among four planning areas: up to 79 houses on lots of at least 7,000 square feet in PA-1, 188 houses on lots of at least 3,800 square feet in PA-2, up to 253 detached and attached homes in PA-3, and 235 apartments in PA-4. The 2022 environmental report described up to 135 of those apartments as affordable, with the details left to the development agreement. The shared spaces planned are the 6.77-acre High Street Active Park, a 7.23-acre passive park that also works as a stormwater basin in the rainy season, an HOA recreation center with a pool, clubhouse and pickleball, and about 4.5 miles of multi-use and equestrian trails. About 55 acres are to stay as natural open space. The passive park sits on a 23.44-acre parcel dedicated to the city for future affordable housing.

The plan would extend High Street west along the north side of the railroad to Gabbert Road, bring Casey Road and Meridian Hills Drive into the site, and build a four-lane stretch of North Hills Parkway with a multi-use trail on its north side. Once built, these links would give Walnut Canyon School and the Meridian Hills and Gabbert Canyon neighborhoods second routes in and out. Southern California Edison transmission lines cross the western part of the site on their way to Edison's Moorpark Substation just to the southwest.

Planning Area 3 is the first section with approved house plans. On September 17, 2026, the city's Community Development Director approved Lennar's 239 homes there (105 detached, 48 detached cluster and 86 attached) within Tentative Tract Map 5708. Under the conditions of approval, a new water reservoir must be finished and in use before any building permits are issued.

The name honors Archibald Hitch, whose family came to Moorpark from Tennessee in 1903. The land was long used for grazing and grew apricots in the 1950s, with only occasional dry farming since. Fires in October 2003 and again in 2006 burned the whole site. The City Council authorized planning for up to 755 homes here in June 2009, and the state-approved 2014 Housing Element counted on that number. North Ranch (Moorpark 67), a separately approved project of 139 homesites just west of Gabbert Road, is listed here as a neighbor but lies outside the Hitch Ranch plan.

The lay of the land

An approved master-planned community that has not been built yet. It sits on former ranch and farm land in the hills just west of downtown and is planned around a public park along High Street, an HOA recreation center, and multi-use and equestrian trails.

Hitch Ranch has not been built. Some real-estate websites use the name for existing homes nearby, but city records use it only for the specific plan area. North Ranch (Moorpark 67), listed with this neighborhood, is a separately approved project outside the Hitch Ranch Specific Plan. It has no connection to the North Ranch community in Westlake Village.