The County shall recognize that the Existing Community area designation may cover the range of zones present in the area including, but not limited to, residential, commercial, and industrial, as well as the range of existing population densities and building intensities. The County shall allow the appropriate zoning, population densities, and building intensities based on the adopted Area Plan or, where no Area Plan exists, by the applicable Existing Community Map contained in Appendix A. Because of the degree of specificity on the Existing Community Maps, the County shall require a General Plan amendment for any zone change within an Existing Community.
MPSP
LU-5.1 General Plan Land Use Amendments
When reviewing proposed General Plan amendments to modify or change land use designations or the General Plan Land Use Diagram, the County shall consider if the proposal:
- maintains consistency with the General Plan Vision, Guiding Principles, and relevant goals, and policies;
- maintains consistency with the Guidelines for Orderly Development;
- minimizes the creation of a land use that is inconsistent with the policies, land uses, or development standards of surrounding parcels;
- enhances compatibility with existing or planned uses in the area;
- addresses new physical, social, or economic factors that are relevant and were not present at the time of the General Plan adoption;
- reduces the potential for undesired, growth-inducing precedent;
- demonstrates appropriate infrastructure and services are available, or amendment is conditioned on requirement to provide or appropriately fund needed infrastructure and services; and
- demonstrates acceptable effect on the fiscal health of the County.
LU-2.1 Urban
The Urban area designation, referred to in the Save Open Space & Agricultural Resources (SOAR) initiative, is used to depict existing and planned urban centers which include commercial and industrial uses as well as residential uses where the building intensity is greater than one principal dwelling unit per two acres. This designation has been applied to all incorporated lands within a city’s Sphere of Influence as established by the Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO), and unincorporated urban centers within their own Areas of Interest which may be candidates for future incorporation. In this General Plan, this term is synonymous with the combination of the areas shown as “Cities” and “Unincorporated Urban Centers” on Figure 2-1.
This designation defines the boundary of Urban in the unincorporated areas of the county and the areas within these boundaries, as shown on Figure 2-1.