To help implement the compact urban form envisioned by the City’s newly adopted General Plan, the City of Ventura retained an HDR Town Planning team led by David Sargent and Paul Crawford to devise a form-based development code for the entire City. The format and approach were based on the form-based development Code that Crawford, Sargent and Moule & Polyzoides had previously prepared for the Downtown Specific Plan, incorporating on selected techniques of the SmartCode.

The Thompson Boulevard and Main Street Corridors of midtown Ventura were selected as first increment of new coding, to guide infill development along these threadbare central urban corridors. The Code is to ensure that new development be human scale, pedestrian-oriented and compatible with the abutting historic neighborhoods, and to encourage intensified housing and neighborhood serving commercial businesses to replace the low intensity auto-oriented commercial strip development, thereby lessening the pressure for outward suburban sprawl.

After an extensive public process and review by the City’s Planning commission and City Council, the Code was adopted in November of 2007.  In 2008 the Midtown Corridors Code was recognized by the Form-Based Code Institute with a national Driehaus Award. In completing this code Mr. Sargent's team collaborated with City staff, who contributed significantly to the final document.