The Jackson City Council and Planning Commission held a joint meeting Monday night to review the recent changes to the Jackson Draft Land Use Element.  Changes to the document were made from a compilation of recommendations from local organizations and public comments from prior city council meetings. One important section of the element that was significantly updated concerned growth within the city.  The document now states that “growth in the City of Jackson shall occur only if new development adequately mitigates its environmental impacts, addresses housing availability and affordability needs, and respects open space resources…”  This new update to the land use element is a considerable improvement over the previous statement, which simply referred to growth in Jackson that “is not detrimental to its neighborhoods.”  Concerned Citizens of Jackson, a local government watchdog group, has been involved with the update process and seemed pleased with the updates made to the element.

The usability of local parks was also updated in the element. The proposed land use element requires that developers “shall provide park areas within reasonable walking distance to all residences.” Terri Works posed the question of whether these “pocket parks” were really useful as compared to a larger, regional park that could be used by the community. Works referred to the neighborhood park in the Woodside development behind Raley’s, saying they “don’t seem really useful.” Jointly, the council and the commission decided to modify that rule to include only those developments with eight or more units and extend the walking time to 10 minutes.