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THE GENERAL PLAN is one of the most powerful and least understood documents affecting real estate. It is a compendium of goals and policies – in the form of text and maps – which all cities and counties use to make land use decisions. Sometimes called a master plan or comprehensive plan, it is the blueprint from which most city and county programs are constructed.
The government’s planning authority stems from it’s “police power” over private property. Cities and counties have the right to enact planning and zoning laws to promote broad social and environmental goals which do not necessarily benefit individual property owners. Unlike the government’s eminent domain authority, planning and zoning restrictions do not normally require compensation in the event of a loss in property value.
Naturally, anything involving the restriction of private property rights in this country is controversial. Land use laws are constantly being challenged, revised and reinterpreted. However, federal and state legislatures and the courts of appeal have provided consistent and strong support for the government’s role in land use planning.
By state law, all zoning decisions, subdivisions and public works projects must be consistent with the general plan. The general plan takes precedence over zoning. This is why zone changes are always accompanied by a general plan amendment, and vice versa.
History
Early planning efforts in this country began with single issues, such as improving health and sanitation conditions in urban slums to prevent the outbreak of disease. Housing reform became the next major planning issue, followed by the urban parks movement.
In the 20th century, rapid population growth and the rise of the private automobile created the need for large-scale transportation and public utilities planning. As people became aware of widespread ecological damage, the emphasis shifted to environmental planning. Now, as we enter an era of limited resources, cities and counties are carefully considering the economic consequences of their land use decisions. The planning process has become very complex.
Since 1927, the State of California has required all cities and counties to prepare a general plan. Section 65300 of the California Government Code mandates the adoption of a “comprehensive, long-term, general plan for the physical development of the county or city, and of any land outside its boundaries which in the planning agency’s judgment bears relation to its planning.”
California clearly grants planning authority to local government. Even the California Coastal Act, which produced a comprehensive plan for the entire California coast, required that coastal cities and counties adopt and administer their own local coastal plans.
California also requires master plans prior to major public acquisitions. For example, the Mendocino Headlands State Park, the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens and the Point Cabrillo Preserve each have a master plan.
Comprehensive, Long-Term and General
The general plan is a comprehensive document. It covers the whole spectrum of human knowledge related to land use. This is a difficult concept to grasp in the twilight of the industrial age, where people have become highly specialized in their careers. We now know that forest practices, agriculture, fisheries, tourism and housing subdivisions are all inter-related.
The planning process requires that people with different backgrounds, opinions and specialized knowledge come together to make good land use decisions. This process employs the concept of synergy, where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. To paraphrase author Stephen Covey, “synergy is the art of creative cooperation, valuing differences and creating third alternatives.”
The general plan is a long-term document, which means it considers events which may occur in the next 20 to 30 years. This is another difficult concept to grasp in our culture, where the typical planning horizon ranges anywhere from the next fiscal quarter to the next election. However, as we are beginning to discover in the fields of health care and education, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Decisions which make short-term profits can produce enormous long-term costs.
The general plan is also, of course, general. This means it includes general goals, policies and objectives, but does not go into detail about how these goals should be implemented. Local governments now have a large collection of tools to implement their general plans – zoning, pre-zoning, specific plans, transferable development rights, conservation easements, design review, agricultural and timber preserves, environmental review, density bonuses, planned unit development, impact fees, improvement districts, urban growth boundaries, and the list goes on. But these are only tools. The power and the vision is contained within the general plan.
Seven Mandated Elements
Every city and county general plan in California has seven mandated elements – land use, circulation, housing, conservation, open space, noise and safety. Until 1984, general plans also had to include separate scenic highway and seismic safety elements. These have been consolidated into the circulation and safety elements.
The seven elements can be written as separate documents or be incorporated into one report. The general plan can include a wide variety of optional elements as well – air quality, historic preservation, urban design, parks and recreation, agriculture, economic development, to name a few.
The Mendocino County general plan, last revised in April 26, 1993, includes ten elements – the seven mandated elements plus a seismic safety, scenic highways and coastal element. The coastal element – a separate report adopted in November, 1985 – incorporates another document called the Mendocino Town Plan. Altogether, the three documents which form the Mendocino County general plan form a pile of text three inches thick. The text is accompanied by several dozen detailed land use maps covering the entire county.
The four incorporated cities of Mendocino County (Ukiah, Fort Bragg, Willits and Point Arena) each have their own general plans. As of this writing, there are also several “area plans” in various stages of completion. These include the Ukiah Valley area, the Gualala area and the Brooktrails area.
Public Participation
Every general plan is the result of an enormous amount of work by planning staff, consultants and the general public. For example, four citizens advisory committees on the Mendocino Coast worked for nearly ten years to produce the coastal element of the county general plan. Ukiah recently finished a major general plan revision, and Fort Bragg is currently working on a general plan update.
Public participation is essential as well as legally-mandated in the planning process. General plans must go through the public hearing and environmental review process before they can be adopted or amended.
California state law requires that all counties have a planning commission, although they are optional for cities. Local governments can also appoint design review boards and zoning boards. Some commissions and boards have advisory powers only. Others have limited powers of approval subject to appeal.
In Mendocino County, the Board of Supervisors appoints one county-wide planning commission. They also appoint a Historical Review Board with limited powers for the historic portion of Mendocino village. Some rural counties appoint several planning commissions with authority for different geographic areas.
The Planning Process
General plans may have a 20 to 30 year time horizon, but that doesn’t mean local governments only revise them every 20 to 30 years. In reality, the planning process is continuous. The general plan is constantly being revised and amended. The time horizon is always measured from the present.
Most of the current Mendocino County general plan was written in 1981 and is not scheduled for major revision until the year 2000. In preparation for this revision, the County has conducted a series of “Living Communities Conferences” to gather citizen input. Major general plan updates can be expensive, which discourages small towns and rural counties from going through the process very often. Overzealous general plans can generate lawsuits from private property owners who feel their property rights are being infringed. On the other hand, Inadequate general plans can result in court-ordered building moratoriums.
The Future
A new computer technology called GIS (geographic information systems) has vastly improved the tedious, map-intensive part of the planning process. Using GIS, various land use configurations can be tested for their potential impact on the environment, public facilities, roads and utilities. GIS has become a powerful land use planning tool, and can now be run on most modern desk-top computers.
Although GIS technology is expensive to set up and enter the initial data, it can save an incredible amount of time and money in the long run. The data can also be shared between computers, a major advantage in remote rural planning areas. Users can even conduct their own planning studies.
GIS technology is most commonly used today for natural resources management, urban planning in large metropolitan areas, marketing studies and in various emergency and defense applications. A wealth of GIS data is available from government agencies, including the US Census Bureau and US Geological Survey, including satellite remote sensing imagery.
General plans are a great source of information. I’ve been collecting and reading them for years. They include descriptions of local history, environmental resources, demographics, and urban infrastructure. And they always have the best maps. You can find general plans at your local library or your local city or county planning and building departments.
For more information on planning, visit the California Land Use Planning Information Network (LUPIN), at ceres.ca.gov/planning. For more information on geographic information systems, visit the Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) web site at www.esri.com.
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