• Home
• News
• Archive
• About
• Calendar
• Directory
• Advertisers
• Contact Us

LIFESTYLE

Residents Weigh in on General Plan Update

John VanLandingham
The Emeryville Connection Staff
June 2007

Emeryville residents are saying now they want a sense of connectedness and livability as the city overhauls its general plan to prepare for the next 20 years.

That is the most prominent comment residents are giving city planners.

“They are concerned about connectivity as Emeryville completes the transition from an industrial town to a new city with more housing and shops. They are concerned about how to get around within Emeryville and connect with places they go everyday and with their neighbors,” says Deborah Diamond, general plan update project manager.

A city’s general plan is a policy that dictates the type and amount of growth a city wants over the next 20 years. It reflects how the community thinks it should grow as well as where, how and when.

Emeryville began updating its general plan in 2005 by surveying residents and landowners about what the city should look and feel like in the future. The plan was last updated 14 years ago when the city was still transforming itself from a former industrial town and cleaning up the old manufacturing sites for new regional retail, commercial and residential development.

Now that that transformation is nearly complete, the city is focusing on what citizens and landowners want to happen in the next generation.

To guarantee that all interests are considered in the current update process, the City Council appointed a General Plan Update Steering Committee to guide the effort. That committee meets at 6:30 p.m. in the Town Hall, 1333 Park Ave. every fourth Tuesday.

The plan update addresses such issues as land use, transportation, urban design, cultural resources, parks and recreation, housing, sustainability. It asks the residents and landowners such questions as how high will future structures be, what will be the trend of residential development—single family, multiple-family high-rises?

The housing element, which is governed by a series of state laws, will be addressed after the other issues, Diamond said.

Now that the community meetings are complete, the staff will prepare a draft plan, present it to the community for comment, prepare a report analyzing the environmental effects of the draft plan and send the plan to the council for adoption by the end of 2008, she added.

Sustainability is a key element to the plan, as the staff notes in an overview of the opportunities and challenges presented in any update. It is the idea that “today’s development will meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

A thorough discussion of the elements as well as the opportunities and challenges can be found online at http://www.ci.emeryville.ca.us/planning/general_plan.html.

One concern expressed at the hearings was with Emeryville’s status as a major regional retail center. “People think we may have enough regional retail, that it is better to start focusing on green space, parks and connections,” Diamond said.

John VanLandingham is a writer for The Emeryville Connection. If you have a question or comment, please contact him at ecocnews@gmail.com