Amador County – The Amador County General Plan Update panel met Tuesday and discussed a computerized traffic modeling program, along with Spheres Of Influence. Amador County Transportation Commission Executive Director Charles Field presented the U-Plan traffic planning system, and said much data remains to be gathered. Art Marinaccio of Citizens For Responsible Government asked how U-Plan will help traffic if it does not take into consideration traffic congestion. He said it also does not include information from proposed new city General Plans. Marinaccio said the General Plan indicates 47 percent of Amador construction will be residential high-density housing, for apartments and townhomes. He said annexation was “one of the really important questions,” and asked “when are actual decision-makers going to see that information.” Field said Marinaccio “came in here hoping to have all of this done, but there is more work to do before we get to that point.” That includes new city Spheres Of Influence, and work with the state on air quality in Amador to satisfy greenhouse gas requirements. He said 2 high-density categories exist: Residential High Density and Residential Very High Density, with the latter the only one allowing apartment-density zoning. Supervisor John Plasse asked about the timeline for approval of Spheres Of Influence by the Amador County Local Agency Formation Commission. County Planner Susan Grijalva said “current Spheres Of Influence will remain in place until cities apply for amendments.” LAFCO and the county, she said, are “expecting requests for Sphere amendments from all 5 cities in the next 4 or 5 months.” Ione City Planner Christopher Jordan said those requests were expected by September. Grijalva said “until the Spheres are amended, what is in place is all we have to go with.” Commissioner Andy Byrne asked if it was “possible to use preliminary data.” Grijalva said “cities come in aggressive. And what comes out of LAFCO may not always be as far-reaching as they would have liked”. A public comment asked about most growth seeming to occur around designated “Town Centers.” Grijalva said “we are hoping that the modeling will bear that out. We don’t have control over land use development, because the county doesn’t own that land…. We have land that has been marked for development for umpteen years and still not been developed.” She said the Wicklow Way project has been designated since the 1970s and still has yet to break ground. Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.