Way back in 2007, CSERC staff and our lawyers threatened Calaveras County with litigation over the County’s obsolete and legally deficient General Plan. Numerous large development projects were being promoted, and County decision-makers were vocal in their support for boosting the economy despite the environmental effects of big projects.
The County’s planning directors and legal counsel agreed that a General Plan Update was needed. Since then, one draft General Plan was scrapped without even letting the public consider it. The current draft General Plan revision has been delayed repeatedly. Yet instead of using the extra time to produce a solid new General Plan that clearly meets legal mandates, Calaveras County decision-makers have continued to promote a pro-development, unbalanced new General Plan.
The State’s highly expert Department of Finance provided a projection for very little growth in Calaveras County over the next two decades. Based on the State’s estimate, there are already enough vacant lots and appropriately zoned properties to easily meet the projected demand without allowing any leapfrog development or sprawl out into natural areas. But County officials have instead proposed a new General Plan that would accommodate completely unrealistic growth projections many times the State’s estimate. To allow for that infeasible amount of growth, the new General Plan would result in 24 significant impacts – negatively affecting Open Space, agriculture, water, biological resources, wildlife movement, and rural values.
Dedicated and knowledgeable citizen activists in the County have spent years building their planning expertise and interacting with County officials. CSERC gratefully supports their efforts: our ongoing partnership with Calaveras Planning Coalition activists aims to ensure that the new General Plan actually meets State requirements. After all of these years of waiting, it would be frustrating to be forced to challenge the new Plan in court in order to gain basic needed protections for rural values and at-risk resources.