Strategy for Cities Mirrors County Growth-Control Plan

The county’s 27 cities will consider a growth-control plan similar to one outlined by the Board of Supervisors for unincorporated areas.

A panel of city and county officials Thursday unanimously decided to propose a growth plan for the cities that would institute controls to tie all future county development to the availability of adequate roads and other public facilities.

The cities plan, which was developed by the staff of the nine-member City-County Coordination Committee, follows approval Wednesday by the supervisors of a plan for unincorporated areas, which make up less than half the county’s land area.

County officials and members of a citizens advisory committee that drew up the county plan have said it won’t work if all 27 cities don’t adopt similar documents.

The draft plan for the cities will next go to the county division of the League of California Cities, where it will probably be refined. If the league approves a final draft, the document will then go to individual city councils for approval.

George Ziegler, a Placentia city councilman who is chairman of the City-County Coordination Committee and president of the county division of the League of Cities, said the draft plan for the cities is a first step in what could be a long process.

Ziegler said the goal is “to end up with a countywide growth management plan that works for all the cities.”

It is not expected that all the cities will adopt all parts of the proposed plan, he said, because their needs vary.

The City-County Coordination Committee is made up of representatives of five county cities who are also members of the county division of the League of Cities, plus Board of Supervisors Chairman Harriett M. Wieder, Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez and Supervisor Don R. Roth.

The committee was created for discussion and action on matters that affect the cities and county government. Other members are Patricia A. McGuigan, vice mayor of Santa Ana; Phillip R. Schwartze, a San Juan Capistrano councilman; George Scott, mayor of Fountain Valley, and Anthony R. Selvaggi, a Los Alamitos councilman.

The draft plan approved Thursday, Zeigler said, grew out of the county’s efforts to draft a growth management plan and efforts by a League of Cities transportation panel that concluded that $3 billion in county transportation improvements are needed, including links across municipal and county jurisdictions.

He said those improvements would most likely have to be paid for through a gasoline or sales taxes, the committee also concluded.

The panel “realized that you can’t talk about transportation unless you talk about land use,” he said, “and that’s the same direction the county was going in. It all came together.”

The county’s plan, in addition to tying future development to road improvements, calls for developer fees to pay for some improvements; buffer zones between large developments, and similar zones between developments and natural areas, such as Cleveland National Forest.

It also calls for a monitoring program to ensure that development is not outstripping the availability of adequate roads and for the south county to be divided into several growth mangement areas.

The draft plan for the cities is similar, allows room for dropping some elements of the county plan and adding other elements.

Supervisor Vasquez said older cities that have no room for growth may want to adopt only a few elements of the plan.

“The new cities in the south county might want to adopt all of it into their general plans,” he said.