Yuba County General Plan update process raises ire

Yuba County's general plan update is drawing to a close after years of discussion, but that's still a little too fast for some foothills residents.

Speaking at a public workshop on the 2030 plan update Wednesday evening at the county government center in Marysville, about a half-dozen residents said there needs to be more public hearings, input and openness.

"You're handing us a document that weighs pounds, and we really need time to analyze it," said Elden Fowler, a Brownsville resident and member of Yuba First, a county government watchdog group.

The speakers interrupted the workshop's planned format, where a consultant working with the county gave an overview, and about 30 attendees could then ask specific questions at stations manned by county planners.

Fowler and Janet Marchant, a Dobbins resident, said the process hadn't given them enough room for input, or hadn't explained how earlier input was incorporated into the draft plan. According to a county timeline, the plan will be adopted and sent to the state for approval by late this year or early next.

"I don't want to just let a chance for input go by," Marchant told planners and the consultant. She said later she's worried if the plan is adopted largely as is, needed amendments will be burdensome, lengthy and costly.

County Planning Director Wendy Hartman said whether to allow more input and lengthen the process of crafting the plan is a decision the board of supervisors would have to make.

She added there will be more opportunities for input when the draft plan goes before the Planning Commission on Sept. 22, and when it goes before county supervisors after that. The county is also still taking public comments in writing, with responses included in the final plan.

Still, Fowler said afterward he thought the process was not seamless. A county housing element, also part of the overall plan, was just adopted, while an environmental impact report on the plan is still being formed, he said.

"And show me the old general plan and tell me what's different," he said. "They haven't done that."

The county's consultant, Matt Gerken, said he couldn't comment and referred inquiries to county planners.

Hartman said there's no strict deadline to finish the general plan update, but lengthening the process has other downsides.

"When they go on longer than a couple of years, the public officials change, the data changes," she said. The result is the plan has to be continually revised, at increased cost.

Toward the end, general plan processes in many places often bring concerns of moving too fast, she said, but Yuba County has had twice as many public forums and chances for input as what's typical.

And one of the precepts in the plan is for the county to review it annually to see if changes need to be made.

"One of the driving forces for creating this plan was the requests we had for amendments to the old plan," she said. "We thought, why not come up with something that can address all those issues rather than piecemeal?"