SAN CLEMENTE : Revision of General Plan Moves Ahead

Five major revisions to the city’s General Plan were approved this week in response to a widespread demand for better control of growth in the city.

The changes in the city’s blueprint for future development were approved unanimously by the Planning Commission and affect open space, school sites, sewage, water and traffic.

New standards in all of these areas are designed to provide the city with built-in guidelines that generally require developers to preserve open space and provide enough sewers, water and roads to handle increases in population and traffic.

The revisions also were written so that they comply with standards required under the recently passed Measure M, a half-cent countywide sales tax that is to be used strictly for road and highway construction. Cities must provide growth-control standards to qualify to receive Measure M funds, said Bob Goldin, principal planner.

The five changes must be approved by the City Council before they can become part of the General Plan, which has been under study since voters overwhelmingly passed a citywide slow-growth initiative in 1988.

The initiative, known as Measure E, never became law because of a subsequent court ruling. But it spurred the City Council that year to launch a major revision to the General Plan as a way of responding to the voter mandate.

The nullification of Measure E was confirmed last month by the 4th District Court of Appeal, which agreed with a 1988 Orange County Superior Court judge’s ruling that the measure placed unfair financial burdens on private property owners.