Mayor: For sake of grants, document’s wording needs overhaul
Benicia’s annual General Plan report has received City Council approval to be sent to Gov. Jerry Brown.
But the plan itself will need a complete review so that its terminology matches the contemporary verbiage that would help Benicia qualify for grants and other programs, Mayor Elizabeth Patterson and City Manager Brad Kilger agreed.
As an example, Patterson noted that Benicia continues to use the phrase “traffic calming” to describe an approach to induce motorists to avoid speeding or other careless tactics through the use of street markings, modified shapes and other methods.
The preferred phase now is “complete streets,” she said. And because Benicia couldn’t document it has a “complete street” rather than a “traffic calming” program in place, she noted, it nearly missed out on getting the downtown area designated a Metropolitan Transportation Commission Priority Development Area.
Patterson called the original 1999 General Plan “forward thinking,” though her vision of the plan is as a policy document while Vice Mayor Tom Campbell said he saw it more as the city’s “constitution.”
AMPORTS attorney Dana Dean, representing the company that operates the Port of Benicia, said it’s a 20-year plan that has outdated references, such as the Lower Arsenal Mixed Use Specific Plan, which was drafted, rejected and currently is on hold until the city can underwrite another version.
Regardless, Patterson said the current plan needs some technical amendments so that “bigger gaps” don’t develop between the city document and the state.
She, Kilger and Principal Planner Amy Million agreed that for public clarification, residents may want to see references to other city plans added tothe city Web page that contains the General Plan.
Patterson said secure, clean water, the condition of the Pine Lake area and other matters should be mentioned in the plan.
Kilger told the Council that there are other Benicia “planning tools” that are in greater need of overhaul.
“There are only X number of dollars,” he said. If the Council is going to invest money into a document, it should address ”the outdated zoning code.”
“It seems to me the bones of the General Plan are great,” Councilmember Alan Schwartzman said. “Updating it probably won’t take five years — maybe two years.” That would give the city time to address the zoning ordinance, he said.
However, the city is in the middle of handling other matters, too, Kilger said.
One is an overhaul of the city’s finances, not only to create a sustainable budget but also to install an improved computer program to assist the Finance Department and other city departments in handling fiscal matters.
“Our top priority is to get our finances in order,” he said.
Another important task is capital improvement, which impacts a variety of city goals, including economic development, he said.
However, city employees could develop a “game plan,” Kilger said. This would be a concept update, an outline for addressing any review and update of the General Plan he acknowledged was “legally adequate” but made up of “dated material.”
However, the actual modification of the General Plan will take time, he said.
“We have an extremely bright, informed community,” Kilger told the Council, reminding them that residents would want to participate in changing the plan.
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