General Plan Objectives and Policies Supporting the Project Support for the Vista Lucia Specific Plan is contained in the following chapters and policies within the General Plan document:
CHAPTER II: LAND USE
Implementing Action LU-1.2.1 - Capital Improvements – Coordinate capital improvements through the adoption of Specific Plans that contain a program of implementation measures including regulations, programs, public works projects and financing measures necessary to implement the Specific Plan.
Implementing Action LU-1.2.2 - Availability of Services – Through Specific Plan development, coordinate new development with the provision of essential community services and facilities, such as roads, water, sewer, schools, parks, police and fire services, sanitary facilities, and drainage facilities. Approve development projects only when sufficient municipal services and utilities are available to serve that development or when there are guarantees that such services and utilities will be provided in a timely fashion after entitlements are vested.
Implementing Action LU-1.3.1 - Plans For Services – Establish the timing of Sphere of Influence and annexation applications based on completion of plans for services, plans for public facilities, and financing plans that demonstrate compliance with LAFCO standards.
Implementing Action LU-2.1.1 -Neighborhood Residential Specific Plans – Adopt Specific Plans for all areas within the Urban Growth Boundary prior to City approval of development entitlements. Such Specific Plan areas shall be no smaller than 125 acres, and organized into complete neighborhoods each of which is no smaller than 125 acres, no larger than 400 acres, and designed consistent with adopted Neighborhood Design Guidelines and Standards.
Implementing Action LU-6.1.1 - Housing Mix in Neighborhoods – Ensure that New Neighborhood Residential development complies with the housing mix requirements described in Table II-2 to ensure that a full range of housing types and complementary uses are included within future neighborhoods.
Implementing Action LU-6.2.2. - Achieve Minimum Density – Within new Specific Plan areas designated for residential use, ensure that new Neighborhood Residential development achieves an overall residential density between seven (7) and nine (9) dwelling units per gross residential acre. Densities within each Specific Plan neighborhood area may (and should) vary as long as the overall density target is met.
CHAPTER III: CIRCULATION
Implementing Action CIR-1.1.13- Widen Associated Lane – The City shall widen Associated Lane to a four-lane arterial with limited access between Highway 101 and Fanoe Road. Between Fanoe Road and “Arterial A”, this facility shall be widened to a divided four-lane arterial. These Exhibit I
improvements shall be times to ensure that the improvements are in place to maintain acceptable levels as new development occurs in the Urban Growth Area.
Implementing Action CIR-1.1.15 - Widen Fanoe Road – The City shall widen Fanoe Road/Herold Parkway from a two-lane to a four-lane arterial between Gloria Road and Associated Lane. These improvements shall be timed to esnure that the improvements are in place to maintain acceptable levels as new development occurs in the Urban Growth Area.
Implementing Action CIR-3.1.3 - Developers Pay. Use developer dedications, traffic mitigation fees, and special assessment districts as the primary means of financing and building road and circulation improvments within or adjacent to new development areas.
Implementing Action CIR-3.1.4 - Landscaping and Lighting Districts. Establish funding mechanisms for landscape maintenance in public rights-of-way, including landscaping and lighting districts, that do not place an undue burden on the City budget.
Implementing Action CIR-3.1.5 - Phasing. Encourage the phasing of road improvement projects where feasible to avoid growth-inducing impacts and to spread infrastructure costs over time. In any case, developers shall be required to construct the portions of planned arterial and collector streets needed to serve their projects prior to project development.
Implementing Action CIR-4.1.2 - Streets as Focal Points. Adopt Specific Plans with major streets designed to be focal points for the community. Such streets should include attractively landscaped medians, planting strips, and street trees used to provide shade, urban habitat, beauty, and environmental benefit.
Implementing Action CIR-7.1.5 - Compact Development Patterns. Encourage a land use patternwhich makes it easier to shop, play, work, and conduct personal business with minimal driving. This includes increasing the mix of housing, retail, service, and public uses in downtown Gonzales.
CHAPTER IV: HOUSING
Implementing Action HE-1.1.5 - Additional Housing Sites. As appropriate, pursue annexation of properties within the City’s Sphere of Influence to increase supply of vacant land for new housing.
Implementing Action HE-2.1.3 - Encourage Non-Profit Developers. Encourage the participation of non-profit housing providers in the Gonzales housing market, both in the construction of affordable single-family homes within the subdivisions and in the construction of affordable medium- and high-density housing developments in the areas designated for such uses on the Land Use Diagram, especially within older neighborhoods, or in new Specific Plans. Encourage developers of specific plan areas to meet a part of their affordable housing obligations by working with various non-profit developers.
Implementing Action HE-9.3.1 - Design Guidelines. Adopt Neighborhood Design Guidelines as part of each new Specific Plan, supporting development of compact, pedestrian and bicycle friendly neighborhoods where residences are within walking distance to commercial services, schools and recreation facilities.
CHAPTER V: COMMUNITY HEALTH AND SAFETY
Implementing Action HS-2.1.1 - Flood Damage Prevention. Require new development to take all necessary steps to mitigate its on- and off-site stormwater drainage effects, consistent with city regulations, state law and best management practices.
Implementing Action HS-4.1.1 - Address Police and Fire Protection Service Needs in Specific Plan Development. Require Specific Plans to address police and fire service needs, and require new development resulting from the Specific Plan to fund needed police and fire protection services.
Implementing Action HS-4.1.2 - Crime Prevention through Quality Design – Design new development to foster a sense of community and to incorporate architectural or landscape features which minimize the potential for crime.
Implementing Action HS-6.1.4 - Street Trees – Promote the use of street trees as a means of reducing roadside temperatures that in turn reduce summertime emissions of ozone-forming hydrocarbon pollutants, especially along collector and arterial streets.
CHAPTER VI: CONSERVATION AND OPEN SPACE
Implementing Action COS-4.1.1 - Grow Eastward – Focus future urban growth to the east of Highway 101 in order to keep the highest quality agricultural lands located west of the highway in production.
Implementing Action COS-4.1.4 - Protect Agricultural Operations – Protect agricultural operations from interference from urban uses by using buffers or transitional uses (such as parking, roads, etc.) between permanent agricultural areas and residential development areas.
Implementing Action COS-4.1.6 - Phased Development – Phase development in an orderly, contiguous manner to maintain a compact development pattern and avoid premature farmland conversion or interference with farm operations. New development should be either contiguous to the existing city or located within a new neighborhood developed under a Specific Plan, which sets forth orderly development consistent with the approved Neighborhood Design Guidelines and Standards and Community Character policies.
Implementing Action COS-4.2.1 - Agricultural Easements. Require new development to contribute to the cost of purchase of permanent agricultural easements beyond the permanent agricultural edges identified in the Land Use Diagram.
Implementing Action COS-4.3.3 - Agricultural Impact Fund. Establish an agricultural impact mitigation fund structured to purchase agricultural easements on lands shown on the Land Use Diagram as adjacent to but outside the General Plan growth area boundary.
Implementing Action COS-6.1.2 - Developer Contributions. - Require proponents of new residential development to contribute to the acquisition of and/or development of adequate parks and recreational facilities, through dedication of parkland, park improvements, and/or payment of fees to acquire and improve new park sites.
Implementing Action COS-6.2.1 - Community Parks. New development shall provide community parks at the rate of 2.0 acres of park per 1,000 persons or greater. A Community Park should range in size from approximately 15 to 30 acres, and actual park sizes and locations will be determined on a case-by-case basis in the Specific Plan process.
Implementing Action COS-6.2.2 - Neighborhood Parks. New development shall provide neighborhood parks at the rate of 2.8 acres of park per 1,000 persons or greater. A Neighborhhod Park should range in size from 5 to 12 acres, and actual park sizes will be determined on a case-by-case basis in the Specific Plan process.
Implementing Action COS-6.2.3 - Mini Parks. New development shall provide mini parks at the rate of 0.2 acres of park per 1,000 persons or greater. A Mini Park should range in size from 0.2 to 0.5 acres, and actual park sizes will be determined on a case-by-case basis in the Specific Plan process.
CHAPTER VII: COMMUNITY FACILITIES AND SERVICES
Implementing Action FS-1.1.1 - New Development to Pay its Way. To the maximum extent feasible, require new residential and commercial development to bear the full cost of the water, wastewater, and drainage improvements required to serve that development. A combination of funding mechanisms, including impact fees, mitigation requirements, and assessment districts, should be used to generate the revenue needed to undertake these improvements.
Implementing Action FS-1.1.3 - Phased Development. Require that development be phased in logical, efficient increments to avoid overwhelming or prematurely expanding the city’s water, sewer and drainage systems. Infrastructure improvements should be completed in time to serve new development.
Implementing Action FS-1.1.4 – Support Economic Development. Place priority on public service and facility improvements that support the city's economic development goals, including the retention and expansion of business in Downtown Gonzales, the Gonzales Shopping Center, and the city’s existing industrial areas, and the development of new retail businesses and industrial uses at locations designated by the General Plan.
Implementing Action FS-2.1.1 - Protect Existing Water Service. Permit new development only when public water can be supplied and delivered without threatening water supply or water quailty in the rest of Gonzales.
Implementing Action FS-3.1.1 - Protect Existing Sewer Services. Permit new development only when it can be demonstrated that sufficient wastewater collection and treatment capacity is, or will be in place to serve the development without diminishing existing service levels.
Implementing Action FS-4.1.1 - On-Site Retention and Detention. Allow for the use of on-site detention and retention basins. Such basins should be designed to be jointly used for parks or passive open space where feasible, consistent with Implementing Action COS-6.1.5.
Implementing Action FS-6.1.1 - New Development Provides School Sites. To the extent permitted by law, require proponents of new residential development to contribute to the acquisition of land or the construction of school facilities necessary to accommodate students from such projects.
CHAPTER VIII: COMMUNITY CHARACTER
Implementing Action CC-1.1.3 - Require a high standard of design and site planning, both in new development areas and on redevelopment or infill sites.
Implementing Action CC-1.1.6 - Well Defined Edges. Maintain well-defined edges between the town and the surrounding agricultural lands.
Implementing Action CC-1.1.9 - Specific Plans. Require Specific Plans prior to the approval of the development of large properties to ensure that such developments are comprehensively planned and implemented.
Implementing Action CC-2.1.1. - Connections Between Neighborhoods. Strengthen the physical linkages between existing residential neighborhoods and create linkages from these areas to new neighborhoods as they are developed. This involves a greater emphasis on pedestrian and bicycle paths within and between neighborhoods, and encouraging alternatives to soundwalls and other unfriendly barriers adjacent to pedestrian spaces within and surrounding neighborhoods.
Implementing Action CC-5.1.4 - Parks as Central Element in Neighborhoods. Incorporate attractive new parks and open spaces in new development areas. Parks should be central elements helping to define neighborhood identity and character. Community access and accessibility by pedestrians and bicyclists should be maximized.
Implementing Action CC-8.1.3 - Distinct Edge. Maintain a distinct edge between the urban area and agricultural lands on the perimeter of the City.
CHAPTER IX: SUSTAINABILITY
Implementing Action SUS-1.2.1 - Implement Neighborhood Design Guidelines. Utilize the Neighborhood Design Guidelines, Specific Plans, and other General Plan implementation programs as appropriate to establish and maintain sustainable land use patterns.
CHAPTER X: HEALTH AND WELLNESS
Implementing Action HW-1.1.1 - Accessible Amenities. To promote physical activity, reduce driving and increase walking, cycling and public transit, increase opportunities for walking and biking and transit use.
Implementing Action HW-1.1.2 - Connectivity. Improve accessibility and connectivity between neighborhoods and commercial areas by reducing gaps in sidewalk and bike lane networks, where possible.