The City of Livermore is updating its General Plan, which is the City’s long-range policy document for growth, land use, sustainability and resource and open space conservation. The General Plan will guide development in Livermore over the next 20 years. As we develop this long-term vision, there are some themes we need to try to balance to achieve our goals and meet our obligations. Some of these considerations are described below:
- Plan for Adequate Housing Options - The State of California mandates that all cities plan for an adequate amount of housing to meet expected demand in their community, which is identified through the Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA or State Housing Requirements) process every eight years. Because the General Plan covers a 20-year period and accounts for two to three RHNA cycles, we will need to identify areas to accommodate up to 19,000 new housing units to meet our long-term State Housing Requirements to the 2045-time horizon.
- Ensure Sufficient Public Revenue - The City relies on three primary sources of revenue to fund the high-quality services and infrastructure residents expect: sales taxes, property taxes, and impact fees associated with development. As costs of providing services and maintaining aging infrastructure rise over time, it is important to maintain an adequate revenue base and a growing local economy.
- Foster High Quality Job Creation - As the cost of living in Livermore continues to rise over time, it is important to adopt policies and plans that encourage the creation of high-quality jobs, meaning jobs that pay wages commensurate with the cost of living. Many residents will not work in Livermore, but the availability of high-quality jobs decreases commuting and creates more time for family, volunteering, and other forms of civic engagement.
This Preferred Scenario Online Survey gathered community input that will inform potential changes to the General Plan Land Use map, which regulates what can be built where in Livermore. We explored three different land use alternatives in each of five Focus Areas. The Alternatives Evaluation Summary Report provided detail about each alternative and the benefits and trade-offs of different land use alternatives to help participants select a preferred land use scenario.
In this exercise to consider land use changes, we asked participants to balance many needs and priorities. For example, land used to provide local jobs is no longer available as a location for diverse housing types. Adding new homes at all income levels creates added demands on City services and infrastructure, but has been identified as one of the Guiding Principles of this General Plan Update and is also a requirement of State law.
Participants followed the steps below to provide their input on the preferred land use scenario:
- Reviewed the PlaceTypes Menu to understand the land uses being proposed.
- Selected the focus area they wanted to provide input on using the buttons below. Participants were allowed to provide input on as many focus areas as desired.
This platform and all comments submitted were moderated in alignment with the City of Livermore’s Social Media Policy.
Please visit https://imaginelivermore2045.org/ for more information on the Imagine Livermore 2045 General Plan update.