County Launches Land Use Website & Meetings Scheduled

With several high-level planning projects on the horizon, El Dorado County has created a new webpage and scheduled a series of community meetings to gather public feedback.

“Land use planning is a complex recipe of local policies and preferences smashed together with state law and demographic trends,” said Kim Kerr, Assistant Chief Administrative Officer. “The Board of Supervisors has called for a broad review of how these policies work together, and public involvement is a key ingredient.” The county is in the process of amending various sections of the General Plan. The General Plan establishes broad policies for how land can be developed throughout the county’s western slope. The amendments to the General Plan are said to be “targeted” because they focus only on policies to better address the development of moderate income housing, the creation of jobs, the loss of tax revenues and the promotion and protection of the agriculture and natural resources.

In addition to the targeted General Plan amendments, the county also aims to comprehensively update the zoning ordinance. The zoning ordinance provides guidance for how General Plan policies apply to each specific parcel of land. State law requires that the zoning ordinance be consistent with the General Plan.

Along with the targeted amendments to the General Plan and zoning ordinance update, the county will simultaneously be updating its travel demand model. The travel demand modelis a tool for analyzing the effects of development on the transportation system, and is essential for understanding the value of changes to the General Plan. The county’s Traffic Impact Mitigation (TIM) fees are also based in part on the travel demand model.

The new website provides background information on each project, key decision points, frequently asked questions, timelines and contact information for comments and questions. The new website is available at www.edcgov.us/LandUseUpdate.

In addition, a series of six community meetings have been scheduled where county staff will be presenting an overview of the various projects, processes, timelines and additional opportunities for public involvement.

All meetings will run from 6 PM to 8 PM. Dates and locations include:

March 5, 2012
El Dorado Hills Community Services District Pavilion
1021 Harvard Way
El Dorado Hills, 95762

March 7, 2012
South Lake Tahoe City Council Chambers
1901 Airport Road
South Lake Tahoe, 96150

March 12, 2012
Pioneer Park Community Center
6740 Fair Play Road
Somerset, CA 95684

March 15, 2012
Cameron Park Community Center
2502 Country Club Drive
Cameron Park, 95682

March 19, 2012
Northside School Gym
860 Cave Valley Rd
Cool, 95614

March 22, 2012
Union Mine High School Library
6530 Koki Lane
El Dorado, CA 95623

“The website will be updated with new information and additional public meetings will be schedule as this effort unfolds, especially during the environmental review process,” said Kerr. “Our goal is to make it easy for the public to interact on these topics.”

Shawna L. Purvines
Sr. Planner
Development Services
El Dorado County
Phone:(530) 621-5362
shawna.purvines@edcgov.us
www.edcgov.us