Organizations for Rural Quality (RQC/F)

Grass Valley Managed Growth Initiative

All supporting documents will be posted at www.ccatnc.org

Questions - Week Six

Will the Citizens' Initiative hinder and constrain the City from implementing the General Plan's "True Goals?"  NO!

In a report to the City Council, Grass Valley planning staff stated: “The "Managed Growth Initiative" [the Citizens' Initiative], as filed with the City on April 1, 2008 will serve to hinder and constrain the City from implementing the true goals and objectives of the 2020 General Plan.”[1]

ANSWER:

The Citizens' Initiative asks that the General Plan be followed, including all its goals and objectives.  Should not the “true goals and objectives of the General Plan” be the same as the Published goals and objectives?

The Grass Valley General Plan Update Steering Committee states in the General Plan’s introduction:

 “The 2020 General Plan will serve as our guide and road map for the next twenty years. Extensive analysis, study, and debate has taken place in order to assure our community’s thoughts, ideals, and values would be embraced in the updated plan.
“The General Plan’s goals, objectives, policies, and implementation measures are intended to facilitate a climate of preserving, protecting, maintaining, and enhancing the quality of life we value in Grass Valley. This includes our neighborhoods, commercial and public lands, and areas of future expansion.”[2]
The goals of the Land Use Element are to[3]:
  • "Promote balanced community growth and development in a planned and orderly way.
  • Promote infill as an alternative to peripheral expansion where feasible.
    In areas of new development, plan for a diversity of land uses and housing types, including mixed use developments.
  • Protect and enhance the character of established single family neighborhoods.
  • Provide for a broad range of housing opportunities, including opportunities for low, moderate and middle income households.
  • Promote a jobs/housing balance within the Grass Valley region in order to facilitate pleasant, convenient and enjoyable working conditions for residents, including opportunities for short home to work journeys.
  • Create a healthy economic base for the community, including increasing employment opportunities through attraction of new and compatible industry and commerce, and through retention, promotion and expansion of existing businesses.
  • Create a sound fiscal environment for municipal government through land use planning and decision-making that ensures a positive return to the local community.
  • Coordinate peripheral development with the County General Plan and appropriate entities currently."

The 1999 General Plan Update committee included both Grass Valley Mayor Mark Johnson and Vice Mayor Lisa Swarthout. We assume they are both aware of the General Plan’s “true goals and objectives” so it is hard to fathom what other “true goals and objectives” of the General Plan to which the Grass Valley planning staff is alluding. If not those so well stated in the General Plan, then they are not the true goals set as the blueprint for our community!

But it does make you wonder what or whose “plan” the City is following…. Or believes they are following…
 

[1]  Proposed Resolution confirming position of City Council relative to the potential Issues and Impacts of “Managed Growth Initiative”, prepared for City Council meeting of May 27, 2008.
[2]  City of Grass Valley 2020 General Plan, Chapter Two Vision Statement, (1999), p.2-1.
[3]  City of Grass Valley 2020 General Plan, Chapter Three Land Use Element, (1999), p.3-25.

Next: Questions - Week Seven (Link)