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Home My WebLink About8.2 Attch 6 Genr'l Plan Guidelines Page 50Chapter 4: Required Elements of the General Plan-Land Use The land use diagram Attorney General Opinion No. 83-804, March 7, 1984 addresses the required level of specificity of the land use diagram. In answer to the question of whether a parcel specific map is required for the land use ele- ment of a general plan, the Attorney General reasoned that the detail necessary for a parcel specific map may be developed at a later stage in the land use process (through specific plans, zoning ordinances and subdi- vision maps); therefore, a parcel specific map is not required, only a diagram of general locations illustrat- ing the policies of the plan. The California Supreme Court, in United Outdoor Advertising Co. v Business, Transportation and Hous- ing Agency (1988) 44 Cal.3d 242, briefly discussed the degree of precision which can be expected of a general plan. The high court held that when San Ber- nardino County used a circle to distinguish the com- munity of Baker as a "Desert Special Service Center" the county did not delineate awell-defined geographic area. According to the opinion of the court, "the circle on the general plan no more represents the precise boundaries of a present or future commercial area than the dot or square on a map of California represents the exact size and shape of Baker or any other community." The concept of the diagram as a general guide to land use distribution rather than a parcel specific map also figured in the case of Las Virgenes Homeowners Association v. Los Angeles County (1986) 177 Cal.App.3d 310. There, the court of appeal upheld the adequacy of a county plan which contained a general- ized land use map and which delegated specific land use interpretations to community plans. See Chapter 1 for a discussion of consistency between the diagrams and the plan text. Population density Camp v. County of Mendocino (1981) 123 Cal.App.3d 334 established that a general plan must contain standards for population density. It did not, however, define such standards. The court in Twain Harte Homeowners Association v. Tuolumne County (1982) 138 Cal.App.3d 664 defined population den- sity as the "numbers of people in a given area and not the dwelling units per acre, unless the basis for corre- lation between the measure of dwelling units per acre and numbers of people is set forth explicitly in the plan." Quantifiable standards of population density must be provided for each of the land use categories contained in the plan. Population density standards need not be restricted solely to land use designations with residential devel- 50 General Plan Guidelines opment potential. As the court stated in Twain Harte: "it would not be unreasonable to interpret the term "population density" as relating not only to residential density, but also to uses of nonresidential land catego- ries and as requiring an analysis of use patterns for all categories ... it appears sensible to allow local gov- ernments to determine whether the statement of popu- lation standards is to be tied to residency or, more ambitiously, to the daily usage [sic] estimates for each land classification." Although applied differently from one jurisdiction to another, population density can best be expressed as the relationship between two factors: the number of dwellings per acre and the number of residents per dwelling. Current estimates of the average number of persons per household are available from the Depart- ment ofFinance's Demographic Research and Census Data Center (www.do£ca.gov). Building intensity The Camp decision also held that an adequate gen- eral plan must contain standards for building intensity. Again, the Twain Harte court has provided the most complete interpretation of building intensity available to date. These are its major points: intensity should be defined for each of the various land use categories in the plan; general use captions such as "neighborhood commercial" and "service industrial" are insufficient measures of intensity by themselves; and, building in- tensity is not synonymous with population density. In- tensity will be dependent upon the local plan's context and may be based upon a combination of variables such as maximum dwelling units per acre, height and size limitations, and use restrictions. Unfortunately, the court stopped short of defining what are proper mea- sures of building intensity. Local general plans must contain quantifiable stan- dards of building intensity for each land use designa- tion. These standards should define the most intensive use that will be allowed under each designation. While the land use designation identifies the type of allow- able uses, the building intensity standard will define the concentration of use. Intensity standards can in- cludeprovisions for flexibility such as density bonuses, cluster zoning, planned unit developments, and the like. LIAR rarnmman flc that each inten city ctanriarrl ln- elude these variables: (1) permitted lands uses orbuild- ingtypes; and (2) concentration of use. Permitted uses and building types is a qualitative measure of the uses that will be allowable in each land use designation. The concentration of use can be defined by one or more quantitative measures that relate directly to the amount Attachment 6