California's Land Use Planning Concept

California's Land Use Planning Concept

California acknowledges the need for an officially adopted planning strategy among its cities and counties. In doing so, the State has required each city and county to prepare a plan to meet its future goals and expectations. The concept of a master or "general plan" acts as the blueprint in identifying the important community issues and creates the pathway to the future. Added with the mix of, what is considered and recognized as paramount to successful land use management, the remaining four major planning issues: Zoning Ordinances, Redevelopment, the Subdivision Map Act and the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), the "general plan" is to ensure that decisions involving the future growth of the State are made at the local planning level. The subsequent information of this paper provides a perspective on these major land-use planning issues and their relevant impact.

Although the state is seldom involved in local land use, the foundation for local planning is California law. Each of the 534 incorporated cities and counties in California are required to adopt a comprehensive, long-term general plan to identify its physical development (Nissen, 2001). As a means of bringing cities and counties into state compliance, the plans become the official policy for the design and location of housing, business, industry, transportation, parks, noise pollution, environmental hazards and conservation. The cities and counties are empowered by the State to create and identify a local legislative body with enforcement powers. Each city and county retains the responsibility for the planning decisions made within its jurisdiction. Through the use of zoning, subdivision and other ordinances/laws/codes to regulate land use, the local jurisdiction is relegated the task of ensuring that polices in the general plan are carried out.

Historical Perspective

In the middle of the nineteenth century, California was recognized as the untold promise land on the Pacific Coast: gold, easy mineral wealth, exotic places and exciting events. By 1900, the United States truly extended from the Atlantic to the Pacific. On April 18, 1906, an earthquake shook the city of San Francisco for two long minutes, engulfing the city in three days of fire. The quake left 500 dead and destroyed more than 28,000 buildings, more than a third of the homes, offices and stores in the city (Reading California's Early History, 2004). This devastation showed the world that the State's bountiful natural resources and mysterious frontier did not make it immune from Mother Nature's capacity to destroy.

The destruction of San Francisco put California in the forefront of American community planning, particularly,