LAKE COUNTY >> It has been seven years since the county last tweaked its General Plan. This week, however, the Board of Supervisors heard of goals and policies that were candidates for revision.
Bob Massarelli, the Lake County Community Development Director, brought possible changes before the board. He said he wanted to bring to the Board a general idea of where the county staff was headed with the General Plan update and to also gather additional input.
It is no small task.
“There are 61 goals in the General Plan that the county is trying to achieve and 512 policies that are in place to implement those goals, and then 228 implementation strategies,” Massarelli said.
The existing plan was developed by 23 different agencies. Yet when surveying the same agencies to find if they use the General Plan as guidelines, Massarelli said he only received two responses.
This, he said, was evidence that the plan was out of date.
One idea to make the plan more relevant for these agencies is to condense it down to just key factors — goals that can be achieved in a five year period — and concentrate updates on those factors. This would prevent them from slogging through hundreds of points in a plan that might even be out of date.
“Rather than having 512 different policies, is that we identify what priorities we want to take a look at, what are those issues we want to focus on for the next five years and still having a long-term vision but looking at what we want to accomplish now. I think that would make the plan much more usable and meaningful to the agencies,” Massarelli said.
The General Plan is a guideline of expectations for the county, economic goals, plans and rules for future development activities. Although some of the housing elements were updated in 2016, the state has asked for more revision.
The state requires the Housing Element of the General Plan to be updated every five years, but no other aspects of the plan are required. Even though it is not a state law, the guidelines in the plan ask for a review every five years as well.
“There is a cascading effect where if some actions are taken others need to occur with the General Plan,” Massarelli said. “That’s why we are bringing this up because the guidance in the plan is that we do the major review.”
Other implementations can cause the General Plan in need of an update, such as the Office of Emergency Services updating their Hazard Mitigation Plan. Adding economic development to the General Plan is also something Massarelli is looking into.
From the extensive look at these different parts of the General Plan, it will take time for an update and to create a vision and focus for the next five years. Massarelli said they would bring this plan back to the Board for approval after all the parts are up to date and modernized.
