STAFF REPORT TO THE CITY COUNCIL
DATE: March 25, 2025
TO: Mayor and Members of the City Council
VIA: Dante Hall, City Manager
SUBMITTED BY: Tim Rood, Community Development Director SUBJECT: General Plan Update and 2024 Annual Progress Report RECOMMENDED ACTION:
Receive an update from staff on the status of the General Plan and the planned update process and ask any questions; Take public comment;
Provide any comments; and
By minute action, direct staff to submit the 2024 General Plan Annual Progress Report to the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) and the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research (OPR).
BACKGROUND:
California state law requires each city and county to adopt a general plan “for the physical development of the county or city, and any land outside its boundaries which in the planning agency’s judgment bears relation to its planning”. The general plan expresses the community’s development goals and embodies public policy relative to the distribution of future public and private land uses. The California Supreme Court has described general plans as the “charter to which [zoning] ordinance[s] must conform.” Still, the general plan extends far beyond zoning and land use. A general plan is more than the legal underpinning for land use decisions; it is a vision of how a community will grow, reflecting community priorities and values while shaping the future.
Per Government Code Section 65400(a)(2)(A), the City is required to submit an annual report to the State on the City’s progress in implementing the General Plan. Unlike the Housing Element APR, the State does not prescribe a specific report format, and cities are advised to highlight measures associated with the implementation of the GP, such as GP and Zoning Ordinance amendments, policy actions by the City Council, Citywide initiatives, and City-initiated projects.
The state-mandated General Plan (GP) Annual Progress Report (APR) provides information regarding the City’s progress in meeting the community’s goals through implementation of the GP. The General Plan APR allows OPR to identify statewide trends and how local planning and development activities relate to statewide planning goals and policies. The APR may inform future updates to OPR’s General Plan Guidelines and help track local jurisdictions’ progress in updating General Plans. It also provides important background information for the City’s planned General Plan update process anticipated to begin in Summer 2025.
ANALYSIS:
General Plan Annual Progress Report
Community Development staff have prepared the City’s third General Plan Annual Progress report for 2024. Council is requested to direct staff, by minute action, to submit the report to the relevant state agencies.
As detailed in the attached report (Attachment 1), in 2024 the City initiated or continued a number of activities implementing the General Plan, which include:
Adoption and certification of the City’s 6th Cycle Housing Element Website and application updates to reflect new state legislation Mapping and publishing overlay zoning districts
Zoning code update for emergency shelters and low-barrier navigation centers Zoning code update removing Planned Development Plan requirements Zoning code update to implement Housing Element Program H3-1 and comply with recent state and federal legislation General Plan Update
Staff anticipates beginning a comprehensive update of the General Plan in Summer 2025. The Land Use, Economic Development, Circulation, Open Space & Conservation, and Noise elements will be comprehensively updated. The Safety, Growth Management and Housing Elements will be selectively updated if needed for consistency. The optional Hazardous Waste Management Plan adopted in 1990 will be reviewed for current need and relevance and either repealed or updated as needed.
Updating the General Plan is necessary to implement the Council’s strategic goals of creating a comprehensive land use strategy and a comprehensive economic development strategy. State guidelines also call for the General Plan as a whole to be periodically updated; while there no prescribed interval, many agencies update on a 10- or 15- year cycle. Several elements of the City’s General Plan, including the Land Use and Economic Development Elements, have not been comprehensively updated in over two decades, as shown below.
Elements anticipated to be comprehensively updated are shown in bold italics. Elements shown with an asterisk are required under state General Plan law, which allows two or more required elements to be combined. The Growth Management Element is required by Measure J, the countywide sales tax measure that provides much of the City’s funding for street paving and other transportation projects.
Hazardous Waste Management Plan – adopted 1990
Economic Development – adopted 1991
Land Use* - adopted 1998
Open Space* & Conservation* – adopted 1998
Noise* - adopted 1998
Growth Management – adopted 2013
Circulation* - adopted 2018
Safety* - adopted 2021, Local Hazard Mitigation Plan update anticipated 2025 Housing* - 6th cycle Housing Element (2023-31) adopted 2024 Reasons to Update the General Plan Now
There are several compelling reasons to begin a comprehensive General Plan update process in 2025:
Many Elements Outdated:
The Economic Development, Land Use, Open Space & Conservation, and Noise elements are over two decades old and do not reflect current land uses, available development sites, market conditions, regional plans, noise levels, or growth forecasts, nor the dissolution of redevelopment agencies statewide in 2011. The Open Space Element also needs updating to reflect the 2024 adoption of the Parks and Recreation Facilities Master Plan. The City’s Hazardous Waste Management Plan also does not reflect current conditions, given that most of the City’s hazardous waste sites have already been remediated. The Noise Element is based on noise data collected over 25 years ago. Extensive text amendments have been made to some elements over the years, including through the Waterfront Now! Initiative in 2008, but the elements themselves were never revised to incorporate these amendments.
Economic Development Strategy:
The Council has set a strategic goal of developing a comprehensive Economic Development Strategy. The General Plan update process provides a good opportunity to use existing funding to engage economic development professionals as part of the team, who will assess current economic trends and conditions, prepare an updated Economic Development Element that reflects current conditions and trends, and recommend policies and programs to guide staff and policy makers following adoption of the updated Element.
State Laws:
Tribal consultation for all General Plan amendments has been required by state law (SB 18) since 2004. A 2022 state law, SB 1425, requires the City to update the Open Space Element by Jan. 1, 2026 to include plans and an action program that address specified issues, including climate resilience and other co-benefits of open space, correlated with the safety element. Another 2022 state law, AB 1889, the “Room to Roam Act,” requires cities and counties to consider the effect of development on wildlife movement and habitat connectivity in the adoption or next revision of their general plan conservation element beginning on January 1, 2028.
Housing Capacity Needed:
With the recent adoption and certification of the City’s Housing Element, it is time to begin planning for additional housing capacity in the next cycle, which begins in 2032. In addition, the Caltrans corporation yard site is called out for special mid-cycle action in the Housing Element: if Caltrans and the City have not determined, by 2028, that it is feasible to relocate the Caltrans corporation yard and allow the site to be developed as affordable housing, the Housing Element requires the City to make available alternative sites to replace the lost capacity – which would almost certainly involve rezoning and General Plan amendments as well as CEQA clearance. The proposed Builder’s Remedy project on the Loop Site will also create a deficit of several hundred units in the City’s capacity for Very Low-income affordable units required by the Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA) process. Under the State’s “No Net Loss” law, the lost capacity must be replaced with additional capacity on other sites to make up the RHNA deficit. The General Plan process provides an opportunity to integrate this replacement site identification and rezoning process into the City’s larger land use vision and environmental document, as well as to engage the community in the process.
With nearly all its vacant sites already entitled for predominantly market-rate development, at present Hercules has very limited capacity for additional affordable housing. It is highly likely that the City will not be able to accommodate its next (2032-2040) RHNA allocation or replace the capacity of the Caltrans and Loop sites unless additional sites, such as shopping centers or other commercial sites, are rezoned to allow housing, and convincing evidence is presented to HCD that the existing uses do not impede redevelopment. Depending on the affordable housing progress made in the current cycle and the number of units assigned in the upcoming cycle, it is possible that existing residential areas or approved development sites may also need to be rezoned to allow greater density. For example, the entitlements for the Hill Town project will expire in 2029 unless further extended, so the General Plan update process could put in place higher-density zoning standards for the site that would apply if the existing entitlements lapse.
CEQA Documents Outdated:
The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requires government agencies to consider the environmental consequences of their actions before approving plans and policies or committing to a course of action on a project. The Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the General Plan was prepared in 1995. Subsequently, EIRs were prepared for the New Town Center (2009) and Bayfront (2010) projects. Since then, the CEQA documents for General Plan amendments or updates have generally been Initial Study/Negative Declarations that tiered off these older EIRs. To protect the City from liability, it is generally considered a good practice to carefully consider the adequacy of tiering off an environmental document that is over 10 years old. Also, the past EIRs were prepared prior to the enactment of many current state laws. For example, SB 743 was adopted in 2013 and mandates the evaluation of the environmental impact of development through the use of Vehicle Miles Traveled rather than traffic Level of Service. The proposed General Plan update presents an opportunity to prepare a new EIR that will reflect current laws and guidelines and provide the City with an additional increment of growth capacity for the next housing cycle.
General Plan Update Process and Timeline
A comprehensive General Plan update and EIR process typically takes up to three years. It is common for long-range land use planning efforts to take 9-12 months to develop a stable project definition for CEQA purposes (i.e. to develop a preferred land use concept and identify the location and amount of planned development under the draft plan). A stable description of the “project” for CEQA purposes is needed to begin the EIR preparation process and conduct the required CEQA scoping meeting.
Consultants bidding on the General Plan update will be asked to develop a proposed project schedule. A conceptual timeline for the process is shown below.
March 25, 2025 – Council discussion of General Plan update process and approval of 2024 General Plan and Housing Element Annual Progress Reports Spring/Summer 2025 – adoption of updated Safety Element Local Hazard Mitigation Plan (an annex to the countywide LHMP) June 2025 – issue Request for Proposals for General Plan update and EIR July/August 2025 – evaluate and rank proposals and finalize scope and budget with selected consultant team September 2025 – Council approval of consultant contract, funded by existing General Plan update fund Fall 2025 – Council appoints General Plan Steering Committee or Task Force (similar to process for Parks and Recreation Facilities Master Plan) Fall/Winter 2025 – Consultant team kickoff and data collection, background research and baseline environmental studies (budget permitting) Fall/Winter 2025 – initial round of community engagement, including tribal consultation and potentially surveys, stakeholder interviews, focus groups, community workshops, pop-ups, steering committee meeting, etc.
Winter 2025/Spring 2026 – Consultants develop potential policies and programs for Economic Development Element update and review with Council Economic Development Subcommittee.
Winter 2025/Spring 2026 – potential interim text amendments to Open Space element to comply with SB 1425 (compliance required by Jan. 1, 2026). Requires element to include plans and an action program that address specified issues, including climate resilience and other co-benefits of open space, correlated with the Safety Element.
Spring/Summer 2026 – consultants develop potential land use concepts Spring/Summer 2026 – community outreach/Steering Committee discussion of alternative land use concepts and other update topics Summer/Fall 2026 – identify preferred land use concept and develop CEQA project description; conduct required tribal outreach and CEQA scoping meeting Fall 2026 – identify budget and funding needed for environmental review, if not included in initial contract; amend contract as required or contract separately Fall/Winter 2026 – consultants develop draft plan elements and work on draft EIR Winter 2026/Spring 2027 – community outreach/Steering Committee discussion of draft plan elements Spring/Summer 2027 – circulate Draft EIR and work on responses to comments Summer/Fall 2027 - finalize plan in preparation for adoption Fall 2027/Winter 2028 – prepare and circulate Final EIR (Draft EIR plus Response to Comments and Mitigation Monitoring or Reporting Program) Winter 2027/Spring 2028 – Public hearings at Planning Commission and Council to certify EIR and adopt updated General Plan elements FISCAL IMPACT:
There is no direct financial impact of filing the General Plan Annual Progress Report. Preparation of updates to the General Plan is funded through a 1% surcharge on the valuation of building permits. As of February 2025, the City’s General Plan Update Fee fund has a current balance of approximately $1.38 million. Additional revenue will accrue to the fund as additional building permits are issued.
Consultants bidding on the project will be asked to recommend and propose a budget for an approach to the General Plan update and EIR that works within the available and anticipated funding. However, it is possible that additional funding may be required to complete the environmental review process based on the proposals submitted. If this occurs, the contract will be structured so that the planning effort can get underway while additional funding is identified for the environmental review in subsequent budget cycles.
ATTACHMENTS:
Attach 1 - 2024 Annual General Plan Progress Report
Gov. Code § 65300
Lesher Communications, Inc. v. City of Walnut Creek (1990) 52 Cal.3d 531, 540