Amador County - The good news is, “we have a map, we have a general land plan,” Ione City Planner Christopher Jordan said Wednesday, though the work is still waiting to be done. The Ione City Council worked late Tuesday night to approve the Land Use Element, setting in motion the drafting of both the new Ione General Plan and the Environmental Impact Report. Both documents were begun Wednesday morning. Jordan said the next step in the process is getting the General Plan written and the EIR written. He said the “EIR and the General Plan are done in parallel,” so that if environmental issues come up in the GP, they can be addressed immediately. Jordan said the EIR and the GP were scheduled to be completed by early April. After that, Jordan and city consultants, PMC Consulting, will roll out the draft General Plan and the EIR for public comment opportunities in some workshops scheduled for April. He said several comment periods will be available for citizens to comment on the General Plan and EIR draft documents. Some changes Tuesday included the Silva Property, on which they only included the property east of 5 Mile Road with the “Special Planning Area” designation, for Residential, Commercial and Industrial uses. The Silva Property west of 5 Mile road was left under the Agriculture General designation. The Triangle Area was also designated as a Special Planning Area. The Howard family is the predominant landowner of the Triangle Area, property between Highways 124, 104 and 88. The property had been discussed as possibly being designated for surface mining, rather than commercial, due in part to potential soil issues there. Jordan said “the city council wanted to recognize that there were some potentially commercial areas out there and they wanted to leave its development to the market and the property owners.” Story by Jim Reece