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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMINUTES - 04101987 - 2.2 TO- BOARD OF SUPERVISORS FROM: Harvey E. Bragdon Gontrd Director of Community Development Costa DATE: March 4, 1987 C,O SUB.IEcTInformational Maps that LAFCO Proposed to Require From Land Use Jurisdictions SPECIFIC REQUEST(S) OR RECOMMENDATION(S) & BACKGROUND AND JUSTIFICATION RECOMMENDATION Accept the attached report as the County' s comments on the informational maps that LAFCO proposed to require from land use jurisdictions. Direct that a copy of the report be forward to the LAFCO Executive Officer so that it can be considered at the LAFCO Study Session on this subject on March 11, 1987 . FINANCIAL IMPACT The preparation of the informational maps requested by LAFCO will have a direct cost impact on the County. The cost of responding to this request is presently unknown, but should be moderate. County staff will need to prepare much of this material in any case as part of it' s growth management efforts which are included within the Countywide General Plan review effort. BACKGROUND/JUSTIFICATION On February 24, 1987 the Board of Supervisors referred the issue of informational maps that LAFCO proposed to require from land use jurisdictions to the Community Development Department and the County Administrator for review and recommendation. The referral was based on a transmittal from the LAFCO Executive Officer to the County Administrator requesting written comments on the draft proposal and a parallel letter on this subject from People for Open Space. LAFCO will be holding a study session on this matter on March 11, 1987 . If the County wishes to respond with written comments, as requested, it will need to act today. A copy of that referral from LAFCO is attached. 4b/LAFCO.jc CONTINUED ON ATTACKWENT: X YES 56QyImAT01 �' RECOMMENDATION OF COUNTY ADM!I ISI I STRtATORB REC. .T"I QSIFA Cl 630'A C:OMMI R TT EE. APPROVE OTKEN SIGNATURE(S)' ACTION OF BOARD ON March 10, 1987 APPROVED' AS Rab COMMEXUED- --XX OTHERS"' XX_. Board members agreed that this is a preliminary report and that there will be additional comments from the Board after the Lafco workshop on March 11 , 1987. VOTE OF SUPERVISORS Il HEREBY CER:T'Wy THAT' TH;IiS, IIS A TRUE, X UNAN I MOUS (ABSENT' III & IV }? ANQD CORRECT' COPY, OF' ANI AC T IiO1Ni TAKIEW AYES: NOES' AND' ENTERED) ON( Tlx: KIiNUTES OF' THE: BOARD ABSENT' ABSTAUWN OF' SUPERVI(SORS ONI THE: DATE: SHOWNi.. .cc Community Development Dept. ATTESTED, March 10 1987. ___ County Administrator PHIL BATCHELOR, CLERK; OF THE. BOARD, OF County Counsel SUPERVISORS AND COUNiMY ADMINISTRATOR LAFCO Executive Officer M'38Y" DEPUTY '8'2/7-8'3 RESPONSE ON LAFCO INFORMATION MAPS REFERRAL It would appear desirable for LAFCO to have more information at its disposal when it makes decisions on changes to adopted spheres of influence and for con- sideration of major proposals which comes before it. Additional informational requirements however, should be directly relevant to the role mandated to LAFCO by the State legislature and not stray into items best reserved by city and County planning agencies. The reasons for this are clear. First, there is a cost to each agency to comply with these requests and secondly, LAFCO is precluded by law from involvement in land use regulation. Their major roles are to limit urban sprawl and to insure the efficient provision of services. The information that is collected should have the potential to actually affect the decisions which are made and not to review planning decisions of local agencies. The two proposals that LAFCO will consider in study session are reviewed with these distinctions in mind. The two documents which were referred to us for comment are the transmittal from the LAFCO Executive Officer dated February 25, 1987 and the People for Open Space letter (undated) also attached. Each is discussed separately below. - The LAFCO referral The draft referral is separated into three sections: data requests for cities (I), for the county (II) and timing issue (III) . Our comments relate to Sections II and III only. Section 11 states that the County shall submit to L•AFCO-°current city 1=1mi't lines within the County and current spheres of influence boundaries. This is an interesting request by LAFCO of the County since it does not directly regulate city boundaries, LAFCO does. Further LAFCO adopts sphere of in- fluence boundaries. The source of information for the County to do this is to request the information from LAFCO staff. Possibly LAFCO should be, making this material available to the County for submittal of its data on the unincorporated area. Section II does not make it clear how the County submittals will relate to those submittals to be forwarded by the cities. It might make more sense for the County to be requested to submit infor- mation on lands within city spheres of influence at a similar scale to that provided to the city. LAFCO might encourage the use of the information to be submitted on the County Public Works Base Maps at 1" = 600 feet (or other appropriate scale) . This would allow for a- direct comparison between city and County information at the same scale. For areas outside of the adopted sphere of influence the scale of 1" = 4000 feet might be appro- priate. LAFCO needs to provide guidance on how they wish the information received or it won't be comparable. Points 5 through 8 all deal with questions on land use and aren't classi- fied for easy data gathering. Economic cycles, property ownership patterns, land costs, . and availability of services (among other) are all factors in determining the timing of development. These sections might be generalized to separate developed lands, those in the development process 2 and those planned for development. (Definitions would help) . Land devel- opment does not occur in the programmed fashion envisioned by the questions. The timing of development is unclear, especially as it relates to the 5 and 10 year time horizon. It should be sufficient for LAFCO purposes to use the classification of developed lands and lands planned for development as they relate to spheres of influence and agricultural lands to make reasoned decisions. The reason for LAFCO to determine the scale and definitions for material is to avoid misunderstandings and leaving the discretion of quality up to the Executive Officer as suggested in Section III . It will also allow for more useful and uniform data to be submitted. Summarily, with these minor suggestions for modification to the Draft proposals the provision of additional data may be helpful for LAFCO in fulfilling its legislative mandate and without substantial public costs to in the preparation of that data. People for Open Space letter The letter from People for Open Space has some overlap with the LAFCO proposal . No comment is necessary on those overlap areas. This proposal however, appears to go beyond the informational requirements necessary by LAFCO to make determinations for each city "submitting an application to LAFCO" within establish spheres of influence. As was previously indicated, the timing of deve-l-opment is,`r.dlff.Icult to judge and with the limitations on LAFCO from involvement in basic land use issues, it is not clear how the proposed statistical material will help LAFCO in it's legislative role. As an example, the first item from their letter reads: 1. Numeric projections covering a minimum of 15 years for population, housing, commercial , and industrial uses. This information shall be submitted in a format that allows the Commission to evaluate the rela- tionship between the existing housing, commercial , and industrial supply and the projected demand." The need for a city or county to submit this level of detail has not been justified in their submittals, so it can't accurately be analyzed. It should further be pointed out that this proposal makes some policy statements which aren't appropriate in a document dealing with informational requests. It would appear more appropriate to utilize with the suggestions for infor- mation found within the draft LAFCO proposal (as modified) and to request additional information from a city or the county of the requested data as the need for it becomes apparent. A review of the LAFCO decision process for the past few years would imply that there is little need for this data. - Additional Comments Several other questions come to mind which LAFCO needs to consider. They are: 3 What about cities whose boundaries are co-terminus with their sphere of influence, do they need to submit data? What is the penalty for failure to submit material and for missing the time line suggested? How does that relate to LAFCO legal time limits in the consideration of applications? What affect does this have on citizens rights to submit applications, even if the city or the county hasn't submitted the necessary data? How are autonomous districts affected by these data requests? Is there a relationship to will serve letters? JWC:ed 4b/LAFCO-l.jc QF' N,11 _N DEPT. V F'l5 R...btu.T 1 C OIP4,IN!I k U N cc!) A ico.' 0 651 FAIIIR yT 'Irfinz-'e, CA, 372-090 February 25 , 1987 DEE'W E Y c:.t'A N S F i E L D EXECUME ORMCEl', Board of Supervisors of Contra Costa County Wo Phil Batchelor, County Ad-winnist.man.tor McBrien Administration Building Martinet , CA 94553 Re: informational Maps that LAFCQ Proposes to Require frcm Land Use Jurisdictions Hanc)rable Doard: For the past few months , this Commission has been reviewing its policies and procedures relative to its State legislative mandate. As a result, the Commission has prepaied the enclosed description of land use information maps that it anticipates requiring from each city within the County as well as from the County itself! This progran is still in theformatONAtage aidu.kill be ievieTed at a LAFCO study 'sesston to be conducted in th,--, Bnard of Supervisors Chambers March 11 , 1987 from 11 : 30 a..m., to 1 : 30 p.m. The Connission would welcome County partici- pation at the study session and, in particular, would appreciate receiving written comments from any interested persons regarding the enclosed draft. Yery truly yours, AS L-i�ee"Thj E. nsfield ExY tive officer DEM:ap Enclosure 1,zAFC Scott Tandy, Chief Assistant County Administrator Gary Brown, Deputy County Administrator Narvey Commiunity Development Director James Cutler, LAFCO Planning Advisor Nancy Faliden,County Supt:rvisor»DiLne Longshore,Concord City Council NIcNI14Y,13','bF0&MbeY-Tom TwWhon CowtjSupfrrviso Cay;,, D.Uilk,-ma,Lafa,,.­enc City CO-,TICR 2/18/87 DRAFT LOCAL AGENCY FORMATION COMMISSION (LAFCO) OF CONTRA COSTA COUNTY In order to fulfill the legislative mandate of the Cortese-Knox Local Government Reorganization Act of 1985 , the County of Contra Costa and cities within the jurisdic- tion of this Commission are required to provide information as follows: I . Each city within Contra Costa County is required to annually furnish the LAFCO Executive Officer an updated informational map which clearly outlines: A. Current city limit line B. Current city sphere of influence (SOI) boundary C. Lands within the city limits and the SOI boundary that: 1. are under Williamson Act contract 2. are "agricultural lands" as defined by Government Code Section 56016 3 . are "prime agricultural land" as defined by Government Code Section 56064 4. are designated as "open-space land" on the city general plan pursuant to Government Code Section 65560 5. are presently substantially developed J -2- 6 . are currently being developed or being planned for development 7 . are designated for urban uses in the city general plan and are expected to develop within five years 8`. are 'designated for urban uses in the city general plan and are expected to develop within 10 years II . The County of Contra Costa is required to annually furnish the LAFCO Executive Officer an updated set of informational maps which clearly indicate: A. Current city limit lines within the County B. Current city sphere of influence (SOI ) boundaries within the County C. All unincorporated lands within the County that: 1 . are under Williamson Act contract 2. are "agricultural lands" as defined by Govern- ment Code Section 56016 3 . are "prime agricultural land" as defined by Government Code Section 56064 -3- 4 . are designated as "open-space land" on the County General Plan pursuant to Government Code Section 65560 5. are presently substantially developed 6. are currently being developed or being planner, for development 7. are designated for urban uses in the County General Plan and are expected to develop within five years 8. are designated for urban uses in the County General Plan and are expected to develop within 10 years III . First generation informational maps required in I and II are due no later than September 1, 1987 and updated versions shall be submitted annually, beginning January 1, 1989, although updates may be presented more frequently at the discretion of an agency requesting SOI review and update. The subject informational maps shall be used by the Commission to determine whether or not applications before the Commission satisfy policies and priorities specified by Government Code Section i 56377. They will also be used in reviewing factors of consideration specified by subdivisions (e) and (g) of F C Government Code Section 56841. Further, they shall be used in making sphere of influence determinations F; -4- required by subdivision (a) ( 1 ) of Government Code Section 56425 . The maps shall be of sufficient quality, to the satis- faction of the LAFCO Executive Officer, to clearly it"lustrate all of the information required in I and II . They shall be of reducible quality to permit their utilization in LAFCO information packets regarding applications before the Commission, including applica- tions for SOI updates. After September 1, 1987, no proposal application shall be deemed complete and accepted for filing, and the LAFCO Executive officer shall not executive a Certifi- cate of Filing pursuant to Government Code Section 56828, unless the applicable informational maps required in I and II, or current updates required in III, have been submitted. People for Open Space - 512 Second Street • San Francisco, CA 94107 • (415) 543-4291 INFORMATION ITEMS FOR A I-AFCO APPLICATION Each city submitting an application to LAFCO shall include the following information: 1. Numeric projections covering a minimum of 15 years for population, housing, commercial, and industrial uses. This information shall be submitted in a format that allows the Commission to evaluate the relationship between the existing housing, commercial, and industrial supply and the projected demand. -- 2. Inventory of existing vacant land expressed in terms of potential housing units, commercial space, and industrial space under existing zoning. This inventory shall include sites with approved, but unbuilt projects. 3. Numeric goals for infill development of residential, commercial, and industrial uses. 4. Identification of agricultural lands within the sphere and adopted city policies that direct growth away from prime agricultural lands. 5. Location of all proposed annexations within the sphere and the time at which those annexations will be made. 6. Letters from all affected service districts stating that they can and will service the proposed annexation without reducing acceptable levels of service for existing customers. The service districts shall also state the level of service they will be able to provide. (The neva County General Plan will have numeric values for acceptable levels of service. LAFCO should adopt these standards and require a city to snow how these levels .of service will be provided in a proposed annexation.) 7. The cities shall submit a plan for providing police, fire, and road maintenance stating the level of service that will be provided, and the mechanisms for funding that service. If the Commission believes the level N of service is not adequate, the application shall be deemed incomplete. The county will not develop inside city spheres of influence.