FOUNTAIN VALLEY : City Approves Plan for Future Land Uses

After four years of study, the City Council has adopted a new General Plan that will guide development into the year 2010.

“The General Plan . . . reflects the community’s vision of the future,” said Planning Services Manager Andrew Perea.

“It takes Fountain Valley into the millennium,” added Mayor Guy Carrozzo. “It’s a plan set out with input from the Fountain Valley community of what Fountain Valley will stand for and look like in the next 20 years.”

The city last adopted a General Plan in 1961. The revised plan, approved Tuesday, covers such issues as land use, traffic circulation, parks and recreation, air quality and noise. It maintains the city as a predominantly family-oriented and residential bedroom community.

Perea said the plan’s revisions include not designating land for agricultural use in what was once a former farming community. Agriculture is no longer a viable economic use of land here, Perea said.

The plan also created a parks and recreation and open space land use designation.

Improvements to eight city intersections are also mapped out in the plan to accommodate the city’s future growth. Also proposed is adding lanes and making intersection improvements on Euclid Street and extending New-hope Street from Talbert Avenue to the San Diego Freeway.

Perea said intersection improvements are necessary because a large amount of traffic passes through the city from elsewhere in the county.

The council lauded the members of a citizens’ advisory committee for molding the updated plan.

“For a plan to be effective, it has to be developed and adopted by the residents it intends to serve,” Perea said.