Countywide Land-Use Plan Returns to Board Next Year

Written by Sean Janssen,
The Union Democrat
November 23, 2011 01:59 pm

County planning staff will bring back a long-range land use plan Jan. 10 for the Board of Supervisors to pore over in greater detail.

The board, after a lengthy Tuesday afternoon study session, unanimously asked for:_

* an inventory of unimproved lots and parcels that cannot be improved due to terrain or other reasons;

* a plan to accommodate rural subdivisions that occur outside of areas with a formal community plan;

* and, ideas about how to make the community plans consistent with new land-use designations in the county’s ongoing update of its General Plan – its long-range land use plan.

The board had its first look at proposed land-use designations drawn up by county staff in response to workshops held back in March 2010. Since that time, there has been significant turnover in the planning department, including a new planning director, Rebecca Willis, who received kudos from all sides of Tuesday’s discussion for her thorough presentation.

The preferred option identified last March needs some tweaking, Willis explained Tuesday, because it provides for a population of about 200,000 if realized. That is an unrealistic expectation and the county ought to aim somewhere closer to the state Department of Finance estimate of 68,000 residents in 2035, nearly a 50 percent increase from last year’s U.S. Census figures, she said.

The current General Plan relies so heavily on residential use that a full build-out would achieve a population of up to 400,000, she estimated, before taking into account lands owned by government and utilities mingled amidst private lands.     “That’s not a good way to do business,” Willis said. “It becomes a first-come, first-served (scramble) to lock in highest land use capacity.”

The greatest concern about the proposed land use designations was raised Tuesday by Supervisor Gary Tofanelli regarding large swaths of land identified as “resource production.” Tofanelli said the RP designation appears at first glance to limit the potential value and development of land within that category.

Mike Dell’Orto, who sat on a committee informally known as the “rocks, grass and trees” group and helped devise the RP designation, said that was not the goal and hopefully not an unintended consequence.

The RP designation allows a wider range of activities to occur on a parcel of land set aside for resource uses, like agriculture. An RP zoning could allow cattle to graze above an underground mining operation or within a forest, Dell’Orto explained.

Supervisor Darren Spellman said he agrees with Tofanelli and wants to be able to assure landowners that their property will not lose potential in the new General Plan.

“I know one thing that people have expectation of is to be able to divide their property to give to their kids,” Spellman said.

“That’s one of the long-standing traditions. I think there should be a caveat for people who want to give land to their families.

“(Otherwise) to me, that is a taking. There has to be something in place to protect people at this point who are vested in the current system.”

“We must have a safety valve for those who get caught in a broad brush stroke,” Supervisor Steve Wilensky later added.

Supervisor Tom Tryon said the board tried to accommodate those wanting to give land to offspring in the early 1980s, he opposed it and it backfired.

“I don’t see how it’s legal or even constitutional to say you can divide your property based on the number of children you have,” Tryon said.

Willis acknowledged the concerns about the RP designation and wants their purpose and impact to be clarified.      “If it’s disenfranchising people, that’s a problem and we want to fix it,” she said.

Concern about the RP designation and its impacts led to the only split vote on direction for the Jan. 10 session with Tryon, Wilensky and Merita Callaway favoring the incorporation of clustering and density transfers into the land use plan, which allows for multiple homes to be packed together near a road on a large parcel while the remaining vast acreage remains devoted to agriculture, mining or timber harvest.

While the proposal calls for minimum 40-acre parcels in the RP designation, Tryon, Wilensky and Callaway expressed support for upping that number in at least some areas of the county.

Supervisors also asked to be able to see the land use maps in a more detailed, printed form versus Tuesday’s presentation on a projected screen while some in the audience requested that it be made available on the Web.

Read the original article here.