What’s a MODEL COMMUNITY?  A model community is one in which all of the goals of the General Plan, and hence,  local Community Plans, are given equal implementation in a balanced approach to development of the complete community.

Guiding principles of San Diego’s Regional and General Plans form the basis of the Model Community’s development.  Ten Elements have been created from the guiding principles. Both plans rely upon our local community plans to provide the site-specific guidance that will lead to implementation of the guiding principles (policies) and elements, and the continued involvement of an engaged citizenry to monitor its implementation.

A balanced approach prevents implementation of a single goal to the exclusion of others equally important. Only one segment of the community benefits when a single goal dominates over the others.  For example, only developers benefit when green building practices or recreational green space is sacrificed in the name of higher density.

The current county Regional Comprehensive Plan and the San Diego City General Plan address all of the elements that make up a model community.  Getting to the model community will necessitate action by residents in each community to ensure all of the plans’ goals are implemented fairly and equally.

The opportunity for residents to ensure that this fair process happens is when each community goes through its Comprehensive Plan Update or CPU. When one interest tries to change, amend or otherwise alter a community plan prior to a CPU, the community can suffer.

For example, if the Morena Study proposals were made to Clairemont Mesa’s Community Plan without a CPU, only high-density infill would be codified (changed in the municipal code) whereas all of the other stated goals for providing adequate infrastructure, green space, green building practices and connectivity of the neighborhood would be left out of the code, left unimplemented or remain a promise to be filled at a later time.  This is unacceptable and will necessitate a powerful singular public voice to prevent.

Our communites are in grave jeopardy of not seeing some of the most important goals and visions of the Regional and General Plans ever implemented in our community unless we take action now.   We are determined to leave our neighborhood a better place for our children.

Every city and local Community Planning Group in San Diego County is under pressure to comply with state requirements to reduce carbon and greenhouse gas emissions back to 1990 levels.

Big Money Developers will dictate what gets built in our neighborhoods unless residents become familiar with county and city proposals for changing our Community Plans.

Its important, therefore, to have at least a simple understanding of what goals the County and City of San Diego want to achieve from their respective General Plans. Those plans were finalized in 2004 & 2008 and are currently being implemented on the local level by the city’s Planning Department by way of amending our local Community Plans.

Huge changes to our transit systems and residential community layouts will be made to accommodate visions and goals for density, linked transportation systems, affordable housing, vehicle use control and neighborhood diversification. Without an understanding of some of the simplest development proposals, residents can be caught unaware that some goals of the City’s plan may be implemented without regard to other equally important goals.  

Without equal implementation of the goals, community and developer interests will never align properly. For example: The Morena Blvd Station Area Planning Study that the city planners finalized in February 2014 seeks to change zoning and land use designations to increase density (number of living units) in the Bay Park, Bay Ho and Overlook Heights neighborhoods without codifying (making it ‘law’ or incorporating into the Municipal Code) any of the other goals of the study such as green building practices, zero-net energy, green area ratios, walkability and bike-ability.  It will take the residents of those communities to stand up and voice support for such codification prior to approving any re-zoning or land use changes.

Simple understanding of the Plan is essential to ensure that residents can actually shape the coming development to increase the quality of life of the entire community.

 Along with the mandate (Calif SB 375) to reduce carbon and greenhouse emissions, the county and local cities have additional goals that they hope will work together to tackle other current and future problems such as population growth, diversification of neighborhoods, affordable housing, conservation of resources and sustainable development.

Unfortunately, without a watchful eye from residents of each community, some of the goals can be sacrificed to special interests that demand only what benefits them, such as some developers who want to build high-density projects but are unwilling to do so with sustainable design due to building costs. Read more about High Density goals here.