SLO County News BlogGolf, Wine, Real Estate, Business & Travel NewsResidents Voice in SLO County FutureWednesday, March 30, 2005Residents want to save open space, solve traffic issuesMore than 150 participants in a countywide summit on the future of San Luis Obispo County are committed to preserving the county's open spaces and quality of life. The last session in the local Community 2050 process ended with recommendations that supporters want to see included in the county's future planning processes, including to preserve open spaces and concentrate growth around existing developments. Government officials and planners, developers and real estate professionals, Cal Poly students and residents from throughout the county met last week at Grace Church in San Luis Obispo for the third and final session of Community 2050, "Planning Tomorrow's Growth Today." Attendees included 4th District Supervisor K.H. "Katcho" Achadjian and Assemblyman Sam Blakeslee, R-San Luis Obispo, who thanked the group for "creating a process for long-range strategic planning in the county." Previous Community 2050 sessions mapped possibilities for growth in the county's coastal and inland areas. The last session summarized workshop proposals, looked more closely at traffic issues and set a path for future community involvement in development decisions. The meeting included interactive polling with "clickers" to give speakers instant feedback from the audience. R. Thomas Jones, dean of Cal Poly's College of Architecture and Environmental Design, was the Community 2050 keynote speaker. He observed "there's a high demand for this great quality of life," with a culture of outdoor recreation and a relaxed, family-centered pace of life. "Our towns are unique," he said, and fit the "gems on a green necklace" development model rather than a more concentrated plan of growth that would fill in green spaces between towns. Jones used the "clickers" for polling and found attendees were open to new kinds of housing if denser designs would preserve green spaces. Aeron Arlin-Genet, head of the County Air Pollution Control District's planning department, summarized conclusions from the previous two workshops, where participants generally agreed growth should occur near existing developments and along urban corridors. Open spaces, including agricultural areas and scenic viewsheds, are "where not to grow" in San Luis Obispo County, Arlin-Genet said. Don Hubbard of the Fehr & Peers traffic engineering consulting firm outlined some peculiarities of San Luis Obispo County traffic. "Jobs (and) housing imbalances are endemic (65 percent of San Luis Obispo County workers work outside their hometowns, including 40 percent of the residents of the town of San Luis Obispo who work elsewhere)," he said. "And there is a sparse road network with few opportunities to change routes to avoid congestion -- and very little chance of building new major roads." Hubbard also noted most county towns are split by Highway 101 and have trouble establishing town centers. "Freeways concentrate local traffic into a few choke points," he said, later observing, "Nipomo is a town that really needs to decide which side of the highway it's on." Hubbard argued that it isn't simply population increases that cause traffic jams. "Traffic is growing faster than the population," he said. "There's an increase in trip lengths, an increase in the number of trips and a decrease in vehicle occupancy." More than 80 percent of schoolchildren are now driven to school, Hubbard claimed. "As more kids are dropped off at school, the roads become less safe and fewer kids walk," he said. Hubbard's basic lesson for Community 2050 planning was that "location matters. The same amount of growth produces different traffic levels, depending upon how it's done." Although the three scheduled workshop are now completed, Community 2050 participants want to see the process go forward. They hope to publicize Community 2050 findings and see their recommendations become a part of the county's General Plan and zoning rules. The Community 2050 workshops were coordinated through the San Luis Obispo Council of Governments, the county Air Pollution Control District, the Local Agency Formation Commission, the San Luis Obispo County Planning and Building Department, ACTION for Healthy Communities and Cal Poly's Landscape Architecture GIS Technology Lab. The workshops were funded by grants from Caltrans and the Air Pollution Control District. Freelance writer Gail Roberts can be reached through the Adobe Press at 489-4206. Residents want to save open space, solve traffic issues Adobe Press, Gail Roberts Read More
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