General Plan Amendment No.960 EIR No.521 CAP (February 2015)

GPA No. 960/EIR No. 521/CAP

General Plan Update

In 2008, Riverside County embarked on its first General Plan review cycle since the adoption of the 2003 RCIP General Plan. General Plan Amendment (GPA) No. 960 was developed to ensure that the comprehensive plan of 2003 remains a useful blueprint for the county's growth. Accordingly, GPA No. 960 encompasses a variety of General Plan changes to promote focused and balanced growth, yet minimize potential adverse impacts to the environment. Specific changes are proposed throughout the various General Plan Elements and Area Plans, as well as its appendices. In conjunction with the GPA No. 960 effort, the County also prepared Draft Environmental Impact Report No. 521 and Draft Climate Action Plan (CAP). NOTE: No zoning changes are proposed as part of GPA No. 960.

Project Processing NOTE: Scroll down to view documents.

Public hearings for Riverside County's General Plan Amendment (GPA) No. 960 and Climate Action Plan were held between August and November 2015. On September 16, 2015, the Planning Commission made it's final recommendation on the project. Public hearings before the County Board of Supervisors were concluded November 10, 2015. With the closure of the public hearing on November 10, 2015, any further public comment will not be included as part of the administrative record for this project. The case will be before the Board of Supervisors for consideration of final actions on December 8, 2015. All of the proposed project General Plan and CEQA documents are listed at the bottom of this page. Notices, presentations, comments received during hearings and other documents associated with the public meetings, including Planning Commission and prior Board of Supervisors, are also provided below.

Board of Supervisors

Board of Supervisors meeting on December 8, 2015, will include consideration of this project.
Documents provided for that date include:

[NEW] Final Response to Comments and Errata, for December 8, 2015   Click here.   (63 MB file)
            For full project Staff Report, see Decemeber 8, 2015, Board agenda. (Click here, select agenda date.)

Public hearing on November 10, 2015.  Associated documents:

Public Hearing Notice (with dates and locations of planned public hearings) Click here.
Notificación de Audencia Pública (en Español con fechas y localidades para el GPA Nº 960)  Haga clic aquí.
Final Supplemental Response to Comments and Errata, dated November 10, 2015.   Click here.
Updated Post-Production Change Requests   Click here.

Scroll down to see the FULL set of documents, including: Recirculated Draft EIR No. 521 (Feb. 2015), Final EIR No. 521, Draft General Plan Amendment No. 960, Draft Climate Action Plan (Feb. 2015).

Planning Commission

Planning Commission hearings were held August 19, 26 and September 16, 2015. Associated documents:

Public Hearing Notice (with dates and locations of planned public hearings) Click here.
Notificación de Audencia Pública (en Español con fechas y localidades para el GPA Nº 960) Haga clic aquí.
Staff Presentation (September 16, 2015, Planning Commission) Click here.
Supplemental Response to Comments (dated September 11, 2015) Click here.
Staff Presentation (August 26, 2015, Planning Commission) Click here.
Staff Presentation (August 19, 2015, Planning Commission) Click here.

Hearing Documents

The documents listed below have been prepared and released for inspection prior to the public hearings. These documents include the comments, responses and errata for the project prepared for Final Environmental Impact Report (FEIR) No. 521 pursuant to CEQA. Paper copies of these documents can be viewed at the Planning Department’s Riverside and Palm Desert offices. Please click on the Notice link for directions and hours of operations for in-person document viewing.

Notice of Intent to Certify an Environmental Impact Report (English) (September 2, 2015 version)
Notice of Intent to Certify an Environmental Impact Report (Spanish) (September 2, 2015 version)

Notice of Intent to Certify An Environmental Impact Report (English)   (August 5, 2015 version)
Notice of Intent to Certify An Environmental Impact Report (Spanish)   (August 5, 2015 version)
Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) No. 521 (Released February 2015)
Public Draft - Final Environmental Impact Report (FEIR) No. 521 (Released August 2015), consisting of:
   - 1.0 FEIR Introduction
   - 2.0 FEIR Comments and Responses (21 MB file)
           - Attachment A: Comment Letter Attachments (61 MB file)
   - 3.0 FEIR Errata
         - Appendix EIR-12: June 2014 Comment Letters (36 MB file)
          - Appendix EIR-4: Final Revised Figures (large file, broken into three parts):
                                            Part A (pages 1 - 63) (21 MB file)
                                            Part B (pages 64 - 127) (21 MB file)
                                            Part C (pages 128-189) (23 MB file)
General Plan Amendment No.960 (Released February 2015)
Errata to General Plan Amendment No. 960 (Released August 2015) (19 MB file)
Climate Action Plan (Released February 2015)
Errata to Climate Action Plan (Released August 2015)

Pre-Hearing Public Outreach

In July 2015, the County of Riverside held a series of six public community outreach meetings throughout the County to help the public understand the purpose and scope of the GPA No. 960 General Plan Update, the proposed Riverside County Climate Action Plan and the Environmental Impact Report (No. 521) prepared for the project. These informal townhall style meetings afforded the public the opportunity to review all of the project's documents and maps, as well as ask questions of County staff. These meetings are now concluded. Public questions may continue to be directed to County Planning Department staff at the address below. The public hearings will include opportunities for public comments, both written and in-person.

For those interested in a project overview, the PowerPoint presentation (dated July 6, 2015) used at the public outreach meetings may be viewed online, click here.
To view the flyer showing the dates and locations of the public outreach meetings held in July 2015. Click here.

Public hearings held in the Board Chambers of the County Administration Center (4080 Lemon Street, in downtown Riverside) are available for live streaming over the internet. Click here to go to the link. Note: The video only streams when meetings are in progress.

Document Circulation History

Please note: THE DRAFT EIR PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD IS NOW CLOSED.

The County of Riverside initially issued Draft Environmental Impact Report No. 521 (DEIR No. 521) along with the Draft General Plan Amendment No. 960 (GPA No. 960), and the Draft Climate Action Plan (CAP) in March 2014 for public review. As a result of comments received, a number of changes were made to the documents and the documents were recirculated for public review beginning February 2015. The recirculated documents better account for the changing environment in Riverside County and more accurately address future conditions. The recirculated documents and associated Notices (in English and Spanish) are included below for your reference.

The County solicited comments from February 21, 2015, through April 6, 2015, on the recirculated DEIR No. 521 in accordance with the California Environmental Quality Act, Section 15088.5. Comments made during the original May-June 2014 public review period will be included in the administrative record; however they will not be addressed in the Response to Comments in the Final EIR. Per Section 15088.5(f)(1) of the CEQA Guidelines, only those comments submitted in response to the recirculated Environmental Impact Report will receive a formal written response in the Response to Comments prepared for the Final EIR. In order to clearly display all of the changes that have been made during the General Plan update process, text has been formatted to show changes made in each step of the process, as follows:

Black Text: General Plan text prior to GPA 960.
Red Text: GPA No. 960 changes proposed as part of the March 2014 document.
Blue Text: Used in the recirculated documents to show changes made after the initial May-June 2014 public comment period.