WESTMINSTER : Traffic Limit Foes Block General Plan

Opposition from property owners is delaying the adoption of Westminster’s General Plan, the document that guides the city’s growth and development.

After more than two years, the city is not close to adopting the document because property owners are objecting to a key provision that requires future developments to meet traffic limits.

Under the proposed General Plan, properties designated as “planned development” are assigned ADTs, or average daily trips, which serve as a kind of quota of how much traffic that property is allowed to generate.

City officials say that is necessary to avoid congestion, minimize pollution and maintain the quality of life. But property owners say it’s a prescription for slow growth or no growth that would drive property values down.

“This is not a well-accepted idea,” said Hal Mintz, a mobile home park consultant on the ADT requirement during a public hearing this week in which the General Plan was again presented to the City Council for adoption.

“If you nail down everything on numbers,” Mintz told the council, “you’ll be making a serious mistake.”

City officials say no other city in Orange County has adopted ADTs as a foundation for its General Plan.

“Everybody seems to be against it,” Mayor Charles V. Smith said. “I see no good reason to keep it.”

Councilman Frank Fry Jr. said traffic limits would restrict growth and “turn the city to a slum.”

“This puts a burden on the property owners,” Councilman Tony Lam said. “ADTs are a handicap in the use of the land.”

The council directed the Building and Planning Department to find ways to eliminate the ADT requirement without scuttling the rest of the General Plan.

The proposed changes to the General Plan will be the first since 1965.

The city has hired a consultant, Lightfoot Planning Group, to help prepare the document, which addresses such issues as land use, circulation, housing, open space, conservation, safety and noise.

Planning and Building Director Mike Bouvier said that the city has spent about $360,000 so far in the preparation of the document.