The team of graduates students who will be updating the City of San Juan Bautista's General Plan took their initial tours of the city on Saturday and Sunday, to get a brief overview of the City.

The General Plan is a process which is updated every 15 years. The City's current plan is due to be updated in 2015 and will take the City through the year 2035.

The students are working in teams supported by their professor Dr. Cornelius Nuworsoo Phd.  They will be focused upon different elements of the General Plan, for example; Circulation, Noise, Housing, Economic Development.

They will be accomplishing an inventory of the buildings and lots and while they will be using the existing General Plan as a reference, they will be constructing a new Plan from the data they gather. They will be conducting meetings of the stakeholders in San Juan Bautista to assure that their input is part of the plan.

The first of a series of Community Meetings will be held October 22, at 6:30pm at the San Juan Bautista Community Center and will feature discussion in small groups about what is good about San Juan and what should be improved. Food will be provided!

From the State Office of Planning and Research

General Plan
A statement of policies, including text and diagrams setting forth objectives, principles, standards, and plan proposals, for the future physical development of the city or county.

From an article by Eva Spiegel and Jude Hudson in Western Cities Magazine in which they interviewed California Department of Water Resources Director Mark Cowin

"A General Plan is more likely to withstand pressure to change it when it has been updated in a comprehensive way with public input and all the necessary environmental documents have been completed. Such a plan can work well for residents and community activists because they know what they want and have agreed to in terms of their collective vision for the future. When the public is engaged in the planning process and the updated General Plan reflects that, a win-win situation ensues. Not only does the community have a clear picture of its priorities, but developers also benefit from the certainty that community members are essentially on the same page. A solid, updated General Plan also helps entrepreneurs and business people better understand what the community wants. And when the baseline environmental work has been completed as part of the update process, projects consistent with local plans are likely to enjoy broader community support."