Ojai Valley Community Resilience Centers
The Ojai Valley Fire Safe Council is excited to announce a new project that will help us as a community to strengthen the Ojai Valley’s response to natural disasters and other emergencies while building long-term community resilience. We have been awarded funding for the Ojai Valley Community Resilience Centers Project (CRCs) by the California Strategic Growth Council. This award is a 2-year $500,000 planning grant to begin the planning and development of two CRCs, one located in the west end of Ojai and the other the east end. Funding for the Implementation Phase will be applied for in 2026-2027. The two potential sites currently being evaluated are the Ventura County Honor Farm and Summit Elementary School in Upper Ojai.
West End Site: Ventura County Honor Farm
Beginning in 2019, the OVFSC undertook an extensive planning process to develop and implement a comprehensive, sustainable, holistic, community-based Wildfire Risk Mitigation Strategy (Strategy) for the Ojai Valley and the Ventura River Watershed (the Road Map), which has been guiding our work to this date. We have completed the Ojai Valley Community Wildfire Protection Plan (OV-CWPP) which is the next evolution of our comprehensive strategy. Read more about the CWPP here..
The goals and vision of the Strategy are to:
- Empower our communities
- Protect societal values
- Leverage existing capacities
- Build citizen and “whole” community capacities
- Develop a “culture of “resiliency”
- Create resilient landscapes
The Strategy emphasizes proper adaptive responses to climate change and other challenges, and implementing strategies to increase community self-reliance, and cohesion through such initiatives as rebuilding local food and fiber sheds and creating more resilient landscapes. The CRCs represent another major step toward the realization of the Strategy.
The CRCs must have two Core Functions
- Provide Emergency Shelter & Resources
- Provide Year-Round Services and Programs that build overall community resilience
Core Features of the Emergency Centers:
- Mass care shelter — Full community disaster evacuation center
- Public emergency communications
- Animal sheltering
- Heating and cooling centers
- Islanded microgrid w/ storage and backup generation
- Hydration stations
The Program and Services will be developed through a “Collaborative Stakeholder Structure” and extensive community engagement. Such programs and services must address at least four of the following CRC Program Implementation Strategies outlined by the State of California:
- Energy resilience
- Water resilience
- Air quality & Public health
- Nature-based solutions & Food security
- Emergency preparedness & Critical communications
- Mobility & access
- Workforce development, Education & Training
Learn more about the CRC’s in the slides below:
