Get to Know Willits Land Use & Zoning
What is a General Plan Land Use Element?
A city’s General Plan contains policies, programs and diagrams, arranged in the following required “Elements”: land use, circulation, housing, conservation, open space, noise, and safety. The General Plan is intended to provide for the identification of land for housing, commerce, industry, and public services, the protection of natural resources, the identification of hazards, the provision of municipal services and serves as the “constitution” for developing land within the city. General Plans typically look forward twenty years to provide for existing and planned development. The Land Use Element of the General Plan is among the most important and identifies how land can be used (allowable uses and the intensity of development) and the distribution of the uses within the City. The City of Willits Land Use Element was last updated in 1992.
What is a Sphere of Influence?
A Sphere of Influence is a planning boundary outside of a city’s boundary, that is approved by the Mendocino Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCo) according to state law and designates the agency’s probable future boundary and service area. Factors considered by LAFCo in the sphere of influence review include current and future land use, the current and future need and capacity for service, and any relevant communities of interest. SOIs are planning documents that address the provision of efficient services while discouraging urban sprawl and the premature conversion of agricultural and open space lands and are intended to be reviewed by LAFCo every five years.
What is the Difference between the Land Use Element and Zoning?
State planning law requires that a city’s zoning be consistent with the city General Plan – an arrangement where the General Plan serves the “constitution” and zoning is the “law” that carries it out. To implement the General Plan, the zoning map and regulations divide a community into districts and establish regulations for what can and cannot be built on land within those districts. To define what can be built, zoning regulations typically address two issues: (1) the height, bulk, and sometimes design of buildings (i.e., how big they are and how they look), and (2) to what use the buildings may be put (i.e., what activities can take place).
Click on the image below to visit the Willits Land Use Element/Sphere Update map viewer. This is an interactive mapping application that provides a number of spatial data layers down to the parcel level. Get to know Willits!
