State Kicks in $1 Million to Aid Regional Growth Plan
BY MANDY JACKSON
Staff Writer
Apparently realizing the urgency of San Diego County’s transportation and housing needs, the state will fund the majority of the regional plan being put together over the next 18 months by the San Diego Association of Governments.
Gov. Gray Davis recently awarded a $1 million grant to the regional planning agency to jump-start the planning process.
According to Sandag Executive Director Gary Gallegos, the cost of developing a regional plan in 18 months is about $1.4 million, and the agency will cover the balance of the costs.
During a regional planning summit March 8 hosted by Sandag at the San Diego Marriott Hotel & Marina, Jeff Morales, director of the California Department of Transportation, presented a check to Sandag on behalf of the governor.
The grant will help pay for staff time, consultants and public meetings that will contribute to the regional plan.
Sandag expects the plan to serve as a smart growth guide for limiting urban sprawl and traffic congestion. It will integrate the land use, transportation, infrastructure and public investment plans from San Diego County and its 18 cities.
The regional plan will address the county’s needs through 2030. It will be updated at various times in the next 28 years.
Gallegos described the 18-month planning schedule as “extremely aggressive.”
“We think we should be able to deliver a regional plan to the board by September 2003,” said Mike McLaughlin, Sandag’s director of regional planning.
In order to complete the plan in a year and a half, the planning process will have to be managed carefully.
“The key will be not to redo things that have already been done,” McLaughlin said.
A lot of work for the regional plan has been done already by the cities and county, which have all completed or are revising the general plans for their jurisdictions. Sandag’s planners and consultants will work with the cities and county on infrastructure analysis and planning negotiations.
“The biggest challenge is to make it a plan that feels like it belongs to them, not Sandag,” McLaughlin said.
“This is a collaborative process working with the cities and county. We don’t want to reinvent what they’ve done,” Gallegos said.
The regional planning agency will also work with officials in Tijuana and Imperial, Orange and Riverside counties.
The level of interregional planning with surrounding counties is unprecedented, McLaughlin said. Sandag has been working some with Tijuana and with Riverside County, but the agency will expand relationships with them and the region’s other two neighboring counties.
Sandag’s planners will have to address the region’s top five or six priorities to stay on schedule, such as land use, open space, housing, equity, transportation and the economy, McLaughlin said.
Another unprecedented factor is that the regional transportation plan, which should be completed in June, will be integrated with the general plans from the cities and county.
The regional plan will look at the traffic flow on city streets and how the local roads contribute to the flow of people between homes and jobs.
Tom Larwin of the Metropolitan Transit Development Board said during the recent Sandag summit that planning for the region is dependent on partnerships between local cities and agencies, as well as state agencies like Caltrans.
If land use and infrastructure are not tied together in the planning process, time and money is wasted, Larwin said.
“The regional plan has to have some mechanism to make sure regional centers are located next to transit,” he said.
Gallegos said the plan will point out where roads and other public improvements are needed. Sandag will later put together spending proposals to address those problems.
