After eighteen years of planning, a comprehensive update of the Fresno County General Plan may be at hand. At a Planning Commission meeting held September 14, the County’s planning staff told commissioners that a final draft would likely be presented to the commission for consideration sometime in October, with adop-tion by the board of supervisors sometime in November.
However, at that September hearing, when commissioners were asked whether pending changes constituted a “revision” or an “update”, the staff replied, “[The General Plan] was updated in 2000. This will continue to be our Fresno County General Plan. It will have a planning horizon of 2042…and we will update it when it be-comes necessary….It’ll be at least ten years before the County thinks about updating this current effort.”
By avoiding calling the new version an update, the county has also avoided going through the official updating process, which would have included a public review and address issues such as the depletion of groundwater, climate change, the decline in ag production and the dying and burning of forests.
Instead of officially updating the 2000 General Plan, the County has chosen to amend it in the hope that it can serve another 20 years — to the year 2042. Is a span of 42 years (2000 – 2042) between updates too long? The Office of Planning and Research provided this guidance: “While there is no requirement for how often to update the general plan, the planning period has traditionally been 15-20 years. Some cities and counties update their general plans as often as every 5 years….”
It’s been the County’s practice to update its General Plan every 20 to 25 years. For example, the General Plan was updated in 1976 and in 2000. Since it’s now 2023, based upon past practice it is time once again to update the plan.
The County has recently posted on its website public comments on the proposed amendment. Click on the link beleow to read comments from agencies and organizations including California Rural Assistance, Inc., Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability, Defenders of Wildlife and the League of Women Voters of Fresno,
