Monterey County Makes Community Planning Model Available Online Monterey County is facing a number of planning and infrastructure issues, including high projections of population growth, current shortages of affordable housing, crowded and deteriorating highways, and overdrawn water supplies, among others. To deal with these issues, the Monterey County 21st Century General Plan Update program is discussing and analyzing these key issues and policy options through a public consultation process. The County needs to determine which policy decisions will provide the highest quality of life to its residents, and assess their associated costs. Accordingly, an analysis of the social, environmental, and economic factors of various planning choices is required. As part of the 21st Century program's public consultation process, a web-based Community Planning Model has been created to present the County's issues within the context of the California General Plan guidelines, and to relate the planning options to these issues and guidelines. The model ties together disparate data themes and policy issues, including water resources, agriculture preservation, habitat protection, residential development density, economic growth, services and infrastructure, transportation, and affordable housing. Choices about various levels of investment in each of these policy areas are combined into a single decision alternative, called an Alternative Development Scenario. The alternative is then evaluated through a process that ranks the scenario based on its resulting effects on economic, environmental and social factors and the impacts of those factors on quality of life. The public will access the Community Planning Model via the 21st Century program's website. An individual entering the website will have the option to go to the county's new "iPLAN" webpage. Here, a wizard will guide the person through various steps that will help them understand and use the Community Planning Model. Step One will explain how the Community Planning Model works and provide background information on the policy issues that will be analyzed by the model. Step Two will allow the user to view Alternative Development Scenarios that have already been created by the GPU team and other users. Step Three will walk the user through several stages of interaction with the Community Planning Model. This is where the individual makes choices about which policy issues are most important to them. These choices are used by the model to generate an Alternative Development Scenario that reflects the user's priorities and values. The Community Planning Model will be available to the public from March 30th through June 30th. The model may be accessed by way of the Monterey County 21st Century Program website: www.co.monterey.ca.us/gpu. A discussion forum will be provided at the 21st Century program website to allow the public to discuss the model, policy issues, and implications of Alternative Development Scenarios. The aim of the 21st Century General Plan Update program is to work in collaboration with county citizens, businesses and jurisdictions to define a vision for the future of Monterey County that maintains, protects and enhances the quality of life for all. Contact: Ann Anderson Monterey County General Plan Update 150 Cayuga Street, Suite 9 Salinas, CA 93902 Phone 831-755-5353 Fax 831-796-3062 andersona@co.monterey.ca.us
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