The 25-member General Plan Advisory Committee held its first public meeting Wednesday night. Known as GPAC, the group is tasked with revamping Gilroy’s vision and guiding principles through the creation of a new 20-year General Plan.
Gilroy last adopted a General Plan in 2002, and per state law, cities and counties must complete the task every 10 years. The process is expected to take more than two years.
By 2015, the City will have updated its “constitution for future development;” incorporated the future California High Speed Rail station in Gilroy; the Santa Clara Valley Habitat Plan; the Climate Action Plan; and will have adapted to any regional plans and new state laws.
“The General Plan represents, for a city or a county, a long range plan for growth and development – a guidebook, a handbook or an operating manual if you will,” explained Jim Harnish, principal of Sacramento-based consulting firm Mintier Harnish who will be facilitating Gilroy’s General Plan update. “It embodies a city’s statement about where it’s headed.”
Mintier Harnish, as well as Monterey-based EMC Planning Group, are under a $1.75 million contract with the City to guide the General Plan update and work together to help further palpate Gilroy’s long term vision for the community.
The General Plan must express the community’s development goals and embody public policy that relates to the distribution of public and private future land uses, according to Harnish.
“I’m very excited about this,” said Mayor Pro Tempore Perry Woodward, also chairman of the GPAC Committee. “We’re going to deal with some very important issues for our community reaching out 20 to 30 years in some cases.”
Harnish helped excavate the deeper purpose of the plan by asking GPAC members, “If you knew Sunset Magazine was writing a feature on Gilroy 35 years from now, what would the headline read?”
The General Plan outlines direction on important projects and issues such as downtown’s 18 vacant unreinforced masonry buildings (deemed structurally unfit to survive high magnitude earthquakes); future transportation needs; fiscal and economic development; residential development; and climate action planning. The City is scheduled to review the updated General Plan in March 2015 and adopt it in June 2015.
“To me, the most important part of the job is the process of getting there. It’s the discussions that you have and the workshops,” Harnish said, speaking to the committee members. “The exchange of ideas, you’ll find at the end, is really the most valuable part of this process.”
There will be five community workshops held throughout the two-year General Plan project, the first scheduled for Nov. 19, in addition to a kickoff public workshop held Oct. 28.
Outreach to the Latino community is “one of our most important outreach objectives,” said Stan Ketchum, senior planner for the City. Translation services from English to Spanish will be available at all workshops and some documents will be translated to Spanish, according to City staff.
Within two to three weeks, Harnish said a project website will be up and running, where agendas, updates, workshops and meeting notices and an online town hall forum related to the General Plan will be available.
EMC Planning and City staff will concurrently work on developing an economic development strategic plan for Gilroy, which will also assess the existing economic base and determine where and how certain sectors can grow.
“We want economic development to be on the forefront of your minds, through all of your decisions through this process,” said Lee Butler, Gilroy Development Center manager, speaking to the committee.
Butler said a draft of the City’s economic development strategic plan will be prepared by December, which will include action items for the City to take during the entire two-and-a-half year process.
“Land uses have significant fiscal implications,” Butler said, stressing the long-lasting impact of planning decisions. “The land use decisions that we make are going to determine how much money our City has in it’s general fund – which is what provides the money for things like police and fire services, recreation, parks and more. Our general fund is dependent on the land use decisions we make.”
A joint General Plan kickoff workshop will take place at 6 p.m. Monday, Oct. 28 in Council chambers and the public is invited to attend.
The GPAC meetings will be held on the second Wednesday evening of the month. The upcoming dates are Nov. 13 and Dec. 11. All regular GPAC meetings will begin at 7 p.m. in the Community Room on the second floor of the Gilroy Library.
To view Gilroy’s current general plan, adopted in 2002, click here.
