June 12, 2007 Foothills Sentry Page 1
A General Plan or a General Sham?
By Theresa Sears
The Orange City Council’s neglect of East Orange in the city’s General Plan update is more than an inconvenience to residents, builders and investors. It results in community chaos and divisiveness and forces citizens to fight for balance and reasoned construction every time a spade is about to be turned.
California law requires that cities adopt a general plan. This plan is used as a constitution for future development and should portray a vision of the community’s future. The mandatory elements of a general plan must include land use, circulation, housing, conservation, open space, noise and safety. Additional elements that are important to communities can be added.
Planning provides certainty; certainty to landowners and investors who will know how they can use their property; certainty to communities that will know what their neighborhoods will look like in the future; and certainty to the city because it provides a roadmap for long-term goals.
Because elected officials in Orange are unwilling to take action when the community demands it, frustrated citizens have had to do it themselves. Witness the Save Barham Ranch effort, the Orange Unified School District recall, the Sully-Miller referendum, the lawsuit against The Irvine Company over Santiago Hills II by then-student Chris Koontz, and the current lawsuit against the Irvine Company’s East Orange Environmental Impact Report by the Orange Hills Task Force.
It’s about to happen again. The City missed its opportunity to rezone the Sully-Miller property from “sand and gravel” to something more realistic – even though no mining will ever take place there again. The City has failed to protect community assets like the horse arena, open space and wildlife habitat and has failed to lay any groundwork for needed sports and recreation facilities.
Right now, the City is updating its General Plan, but East Orange isn’t included. There are only 10 land use focus areas being considered – none of them east of Prospect. To add insult to injury, these areas were selected by a consultant hired by the City and paid for by taxpayers – including the taxpayers of East Orange. What good did that million dollar expense do them?
The City of Orange needs a plan for the Sully-Miller and Ridgeline properties. A plan would give the landowners a blueprint for their property’s potential. A plan would end the speculative environment wherein entities buy land with dreams of building to another use. A plan would calm community nerves about a future horse arena, development, open space, traffic issues and infrastructure.
A plan for these properties could allow limited development in return for open space, an arena and community amenities. A plan could leverage park bond funds, water quality funds, and Proposition M funds to preserve our open space, improve our creek, and tame our roads. California has a mechanism in the planning toolbox to control growth and achieve community goals in areas such as East Orange. The City needs to take the tool out of the toolbox and construct a reasonable plan for everyone’s benefit.
Thus far the City has ignored requests that this planning take place. It has missed the opportunity through its general plan update to correct sand-and-gravel zoning where no future mining will take place. It has failed to protect community assets such as the arena and open space, but it has the opportunity to correct this wrong.
Taken from The Foothills Sentry http://www.foothillssentry.com/