General Plan process, Half Moon Bay

Half Moon Bay Review/Mark Noack, 11/20/14.  "Crowd hashes out future for Half Moon Bay. General Plan draws overflowing audience."

Turkeys in charge, more open space!

What's a balanced city?

"A meeting last week meant to zero in on a new general plan for Half Moon Bay may have demonstrated just how difficult it will be to get everyone on the same page. The gathering last week was the fifth meeting of the General Plan Advisory Committee, a 14-person panel selected to help rethink the city’s master strategy for land-use. For more than a year the committee has met to collect public comment and discuss general long-term ideas for the city over the next 25 years.

Hired planners from the firm Dyett & Bhatia designed each map with a particular emphasis based on the themes they were seeing in the public comments. One idea was to focus development around downtown, creating a compact walkable urban area that would encourage residents to use their vehicles less frequently. A second map focused on creating a new roadway to ease the traffic burden on the local highways and connect the disparate islands of subdivisions running north of the city. The third proposal aimed to improve open-space resources by linking new trails and officially conserving a swath of undeveloped areas that were technically subdivisions according to the city’s maps.

.... By far, the most vocal group at the meeting was the open-space contingent. Echoing those concerns, a couple committee members urged the planners to draft a fourth option centered on preserving the wilderness around town and minimizing growth.

Committee members each spoke in turn pointing out small things they wanted to see, such as a central city park and more office space. Planners at the meeting pledged they would take the committee’s input and revise the proposal for the next meeting, scheduled for February."  Read more.

Note photographs. Turkeys in field by Nicolette Hahn Niman from The Atlantic,11/18/10, "Heritage turkeys: worth the cost?"  Turkeys in neighborhood from Getty, Examiner, 11/23/12."Wild turkeys attack people, cars and front doors in Mass."

Posted by Kathy Meeh