Local News in Brief : Countywide : Action Delayed on Growth Control Plan

The Orange County Planning Commission on Tuesday postponed for one week action on a proposed growth management plan for unincorporated areas.

The commission also recommended that the 11-member citizens advisory committee that drafted the proposal consider rewriting parts of the document.

Commission Chairman Tom Moody said the recommended changes are relatively minor and that the overall proposal is sound. But Sherry Meddick, one of two slow-growth activists on the advisory committee, said the recommendations are an attempt to dilute the plan.

“I’m real disappointed,” Meddick said.

Meddick said she would fight the proposed changes at a committee meeting Thursday, but she expected to be voted down.

The Planning Commission wants the citizens committee, which was formed by the County Board of Supervisors in March, to reconsider or clarify language that calls for “preservation” of natural resources, creation throughout the county of so-called growth management areas, the creation of “buffer zones” between housing and commercial developments, and “rural transition areas” between development and natural resources such as Cleveland National Forest.

Road improvements paid for by developers and specific traffic flow standards for intersections are the centerpieces of the proposal, which borrows heavily from Measure A, the slow-growth initiative that was defeated in countywide balloting June 7.