Concord's General Plan and
Zoning Ordinance Update Project

 

View of the entrance to Salvio Pacheco Square from Todos Santos Plaza

 

Concord 2030 Urban Area General Plan Update

Introduction

The City has reached a major milestone with the General Plan Update project. The City Council on October 2, 2007, adopted the new Concord 2030 Urban Area General Plan. The Concord 2030 Urban Area General Plan articulates a vision for the City over the next 23 years, one that draws its ideas from the many citizens, business owners, elected officials, and City staff who participated in the various meetings and workshops during the update process, which began in 2003. The plan has been designed to provide the framework for the urban area of the City and reflects current planning and economic development efforts.  The plan envisions Concord as a modern and vibrant urban place, infused with a sense of its heritage, a vision that preserves the desirable qualities of the City that makes it an ideal place to live, work, and raise a family. 

The plan establishes a long-range vision that reflects the aspirations of the community, and outlines steps to achieve this vision. It provides a basis for judging whether specific development proposals and public projects are in harmony with community priorities. It allows City departments, other public agencies, and private developers to design projects that will enhance the character of the community, preserve environmental resources, and minimize hazards. Finally, it helps establish priorities for more specialized documents such as the Zoning Ordinance and subdivision regulations that are currently being updated.

Key Initiatives
The Concord 2030 Urban Area General Plan is intended to carry out the following key initiatives:

  • Integrating economic development into the General Plan. The new Economic Vitality Element brings the City’s Economic Vitality Strategy into the General Plan and underscores the City’s goals for fiscal health, a strong regional center, a vibrant Downtown, retail strength, and responsible reuse of the Concord Naval Weapons Station.
  • Protecting community assets. The plan renews the City’s commitment to protect and enhance its community assets, including quiet communities with distinctive character, a strong sense of community, a diverse population, high quality building design, convenient shopping, broad choice in employment and entertainment, a family atmosphere with excellent recreational activities, and job opportunities close to where people live.
  • Supporting mixed use development and transit-supportive land uses around the BART station and in commercial corridors with bus service. The plan promotes mixed use development around the downtown BART station and along arterial streets on underused or abandoned retail sites to create more vitality in these commercial corridors. Adjacent neighborhoods will be protected by buffering standards to avoid adverse impacts.
  • Protecting ridgelines, visible hillsides and significant environmental resources. With the extended planning area, plan policies are intended to protect ridgelines, visible hillsides and other significant natural resource areas from development that would have adverse environmental or visual impacts.
  • Creating a safe and efficient multi-modal transportation system. The plan establishes a comprehensive set of principles and policies to enhance the existing system and promote a well-integrated and coordinated transit network and safe and convenient pedestrian and bicycle circulation.
  • Preserving and enhancing environmental resources. Plan policies call for an interconnected open space system, restoration of degraded resources, protection of creeks and wetlands, and water conservation.
  • Providing effective disaster response and planning. A Local Hazards Mitigation Plan was adopted, consistent with the guidelines for the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Disaster Act of 2000.
  • Planning for environmental justice. The City will plan for the equitable distribution of community facilities and services to meet the needs of all segments of the population and provide services for special needs that increase and enhance the community’s quality of life while avoiding over-concentration in any one area.

Policy Principles

Below is a sample of principles contained in the Concord 2030 Urban Area General Plan. The partial list of principles provides a good sense of the spirit of the document and the kinds of strategies that are being put forward to achieve the vision of the plan. The principles are organized by Plan Element.

Economic Vitality

  • Make Concord an ideal, fiscally stable place to live and work.
  • Establish Concord as the major regional business and employment center of Contra Costa County.
  • Ensure that downtown is a vibrant city center.
  • Maintain retail vitality.
  • Improve the economy in the Monument Boulevard and Clayton Road corridors.

Land Use

  • Preserve and enhance neighborhood character.
  • Encourage infill residential development.
  • Foster viable, neighborhood-oriented commercial centers.
  • Foster strong region-serving commercial centers.
  • Capitalize on downtown’s sense of place.
  • Foster the viability and expansion of Buchanan Field Airport.
  • Provide for a premier medical center.
  • Promote higher education in Concord.
  • Require high quality building design and site planning.
  • Create attractive, inviting public spaces and streets that enhance the image and character of the city.
  • Protect ridgelines and visible hillsides.

Growth Management

  • Ensure that new development pays its fair share of costs for transportation facilities.
  • Establish performance standards for facilities.
  • Strive to attain a balance between resident workers and jobs in Concord.
  • Strive to ensure the availability of affordable housing.
  • Promote efficient and orderly growth and protect open space by establishing an Urban Limit Line.

Transportation and Circulation

  • Ensure that transportation and circulation projects are adequately funded.
  • Foster practical parking solutions.
  • Promote a well-integrated and coordinated transit network.
  • Provide safe and convenient pedestrian circulation.
  • Provide a safe and comprehensive bicycle network.
  • Support the preservation and expansion of region-serving aviation facilities.
  • Promote the development of port and rail service.

Parks, Open Space and Conservation

  • Provide and maintain park and recreation facilities for the entire community.
  • Provide a city-wide, interconnected, multi-use trails system.
  • Facilitate community recreational opportunities at public school sites.
  • Preserve and protect water quality and wetlands.
  • Facilitate water conservation.
  • Conserve natural resources.
  • Protect historic sites and structures and prehistoric cultural resources.

Safety and Noise

  • Support regional air quality strategies through land use planning, site design and development review.
  • Encourage land use compatibility for community noise environments.
  • Minimize the effects of landslides, ground failure and seismic hazards.
  • Protect the community from risks to lives and property posed by flooding and stormwater runoff.
  • Promote inter-agency coordination.
  • Promote effective fire protection measures for homes adjacent to open space.
  • Provide the highest standard of police protection services.
  • Coordinate with agencies to plan disaster response.

Schools and Community Facilities

  • Provide a safe and reliable water supply.
  • Ensure public health and safety through effective wastewater collection and treatment.
  • Ensure access to utility systems.
  • Facilitate the development of educational programs and facilities that meet the needs of the community.
  • Support the provision of library and childcare services.
  • Foster arts and entertainment.
  • Ensure environmental justice in providing public facilities and services.

To see a copy of the Concord 2030 Urban Area General Plan, visit the Permit Center, 1950 Parkside Drive or the Concord Library, 2900 Salvio Street.

The Concord 2030 Urban Area General Plan is available for purchase.  The cost for the document is $65 plus $5 shipping and handling, or $5 for a CD by contacting Principal Planner Phillip Woods, at 671-3284.   

Adoption of the General Plan will now allow the City to move forward with several other major initiatives, including the update of the Subdivision and Zoning Ordinances.  It is estimated that public hearings regarding the Subdivision Ordinance will begin in January 2008 and workshops with the Planning Commission to begin its review of the Zoning Ordinance will occur in late winter. Information regarding these projects can be found on the City’s Web site. 

Other General Plan Documents

Existing Planning Documents

Direct comments and questions regarding the General Plan to:

Phillip Woods
Principal Planner
City of Concord
1950 Parkside Drive, MS/53
Concord, CA 94519
(925) 671-3284
E-mail: pwoods@ci.concord.ca.us

Direct comments and questions regarding the Zoning Ordinance to:

Deborah Raines
Planning Manager
City of Concord
1950 Parkside Drive, MS/53
Concord, CA 94519
(925) 671-3369
E-mail: draines@ci.concord.ca.us