City staff will take another stab at the nearly 200 goals and objectives on its to-do list as it pushes forward with the Strategic Plan the council adopted at the City Council meeting on July 16.

Among the goals, which have been identified and organized through several workshops, are to promote comprehensive housing programs and solutions, emphasize Old Town Revitalization and promote a healthy business climate.

“The Strategic Plan is an important document,” said City Manager Dan Singer. “It works to move us forward in a direction that ends up being consistent with the council’s objectives.”
Some objectives outlined in the plan have already been accomplished, such as the establishment of a two-year budget, and participation in an energy efficiency partnership, while others, like flood control in Old Town, and review of the city’s revenue neutrality agreement with the county, have yet to be completed.

Housing, again

City staff will be getting to work on proposed amendments to the city’s General Plan, now that city planners have come out with a work program to tackle the process. Also up for discussion will be certification of the plan’s housing element as well as a future Sphere of Influence.

“We have set forth what we believe to be a logical process in terms of both steps and timing,” said Planning and Environmental Services Director Steve Chase.

The program consists of simultaneously dealing with different components of the General Plan amendment along five tracks: the housing element, minor policy revisions, substantive policy revisions, other general plan amendment requests and Sphere of Influence.

Under this work program, the city anticipates that its General Plan’s housing element will be certified by the state department of Housing and Community Development by December. Items like the minor policy revisions should be completed by fall, and the major revisions could be adopted by summer of next year. The city’s final sphere of influence, according to the city’s time line, could be up for review by the Santa Barbara Local Agency Formation Commission by the start of 2009.

The process will kick off on Aug. 6, when the council holds a meeting to finish up business they first took up with the April 16 public hearing to initiate amendments to the General Plan. In that meeting the council will figure out how to tackle the approximately 200 suggestions made by council, staff, and the community to amend the General Plan. The council will not be discussing the Housing Element or the Sphere of Influence at that meeting.

The information from the April 16 and Aug. 6 meeting will then be processed at two public workshops scheduled for Sept. 15 and 22. Those workshops will be televised live as well as taped.

The city’s potential Sphere of Influence, which may or may not include areas currently outside the city’s boundaries, like Glen Annie Golf Course, and the unincorporated Patterson/Cathedral Oaks area among others, wil be discussed at the Sept. 4 City Council meeting.