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MADERA COUNTY GENERAL PLAN
PURPOSE AND NATURE

A General Plan is a Document required by California Law that serves as a Community’s “Constitution” for Land Use and Development.

The Law specifically requires that the General Plan address seven topics or “elements.” These are Land Use, Circulation (transportation), Housing, Conservations, Open Spaces, Noise, and Safety.

The plan must analyze Issues of Importance to the Community, set forth policies in text and diagrams for conservation and development, and outline specific programs for implementing these policies.

By focusing attention on the issues facing the community and placing them in an expanded time frame, the General Plan helps Citizens to see their community as a complex system that changes and evolves in response to problems and opportunities and it helps to Guide the Community along an Agreed-Upon Course.

More specifically, preparing, adopting, and maintaining a general plan serves the following purposes:

1.

To expand the capacity of local government to analyze local and regional conditions and needs in order to respond effectively to the problems and opportunities facing the community;

2.

To define the community’s environmental, social, and economic goals;

3.

To record the local governments policies and standards for the maintenance and improvement of existing development and the location and characteristics of future development;

4.

To provide citizens with information about their community and with opportunities to participate in setting goals and determining policies and standards for the community’s development.

5.

To foster the coordination of community development and environmental protection activities among local, regional, state, and federal agencies;

6.

To guide and coordinate the many actions and day-to-day decisions of local government that are necessary to developing and protecting the community;

7.

To provide local decision-makers and the community with forum for resolving conflicts among competing interest and values.

Website Locations:

(click on title below to access document)

General Plan - Policy Document (106 pages)

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