General Plan Policy Document (Adopted 7-11 ... - City of Wheatland

GENERAL PLAN SUMMARYPART IGENERAL PLAN SUMMARYINTRODUCTIONThis General Plan sets out a long-term vision for the physical evolutionof Wheatland and outlines policies, standards, and programs to guideday-to-day decisions concerning Wheatland’s development throughthe year 2025. Designed to meet State planning requirements, theGeneral Plan consists of two documents: this General Plan PolicyDocument and a General Plan Background Report. This PolicyDocument is divided into two main parts. Part I is this General PlanSummary, which provides background about the General Plan andreviews the plan’s guiding principles and major themes and proposals.The lengthier and more detailed Part II of the Policy Documentpresents the City of Wheatland’s formal statements of General Planpolicy in the form of goals, policies, standards, and implementationprograms, expressed in both text and diagrams. Throughout thisdocument, a symbol denotes more information is available to the leftin the shaded text boxes.PURPOSEANDNATUREOFTHEGENERALPLANEvery city and county in California must adopt a general plan. Ageneral plan is a legal document that serves as a community’sconstitution for land use and development. The plan must becomprehensive and long-term, outlining proposals for the physicaldevelopment of the county or city, and any land outside its boundarieswhich in the planning agency’s judgment bears relation to its planning(Government Code Section 65300 et seq.) The plan must becomprehensive in covering all territory within the adopting jurisdictionand it must be comprehensive in addressing all physical aspects ofthe community’s development. While State law does not define longterm,most general plans look 15 to 25 years into the future.Wheatland’s General Plan uses a time frame of 2025.State law specifically requires that the general plan address seventopics or elements. These are land use, circulation, housing,conservation, open space, noise, and safety. The general plan may alsoaddress other topics the community feels are relevant to itsdevelopment. For each topic addressed, the plan must analyze thesignificance of the issue in the community, set forth policy in text anddiagrams, and outline specific programs for implementing thesepolicies. The format and structure of the general plan is left to localdiscretion, but regardless of the format or issues addressed, allsubstantive parts of the plan must be consistent with one another.Wheatland General Plan Policy Document, Part I 1July 11, 2006