First Steps in Change to General Plan?
The Santa Barbara Daily Sound Blog is reporting that the Goleta City Council has asked the Planning Staff to prepare a report for the March 5, 2007 Council Meeting regarding setting up a process for considering possible changes to the City's General Plan.
This was definately a major issue brought up time and time again during the run up to the election of what is now three new faces on the Council. All three of them said they would take the time to listen to the public and gather input on changes to the Goleta General Plan, while the old trio on the Council sought to move forward with what they had crafted. This, of course, had many people in an uproar, including the Goleta Chamber (aka the Chamber of Concrete).
So, I at least commend them on keeping with their promises of looking at and making changes to the general plan.
Let me ask you, what process(es) should be setup (or you would like to see) to consider possible changes to the General Plan?
2 comments:
I wrote a letter in comment to the EIR for the General Plan, concerning the permanent concreting of some sensitive habitat. I asked that the impacts of that particular urban developement be analyzed; they had not been in the EIR.
The staff response was sarcastic and critical. How dare I suggest that Environmental Impacts be analyzed in an Environmental Impact Report? While some parcels in the city, mainly near Ellwood, were rezoned from residential to park because of apparent impacts, other parcels near wetlands were viewed as developable by the City staff with no analysis.
That interaction turned me against the General Plan as it is. I hope they do a serious environmental impact assessment of all parcels slated for development in the City, not just the ones that some staff support analysis of.
Chamber of Concrete? That does not agree with my experience above; it was the staff and old Council who, in certain locales, supported intense development. It may be that the new Council is the same, particularly Onnen, because the parcels are near the Airbus. But they haven't clearly said so yet.
Having participated in the first set of General Plan meetings, I can hardly wait to participate in the "new", "improved" hearings.
I think that the council did a good job the first time, distinguishing the comments from Goleta residents, from the comments of paid lobbyists for outside developers.
Let's see if the new council believes that Goleta's destiny should be determined by its residents, or by those who just want to speculate, develop and go back to their million dollar homes outside Goleta or even outside the county...yep, I'm talking about the big contributors to the new council members, whose contributions are a matter of public record in campaign finance reports.
Let's see if the new council listens to residents or to the Goleta Chamber, the latter which has been a big booster or large, national businesses, such as Home Depot and Costco, much to the detriment of the small local Goleta businesses struggling to survive.
At a minimum, people speaking at the new General Plan meetings should have to identify themselves as to whether they are Goleta residents and also, if they are being paid to represent someone, rather than speaking in their own behalf. Isn't that a minimally fair ground rule?
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