A joint City Council/Planning Commission meeting has been scheduled for 6 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 30 at the Ceres Community Center, 2701 Fourth Street, to take up the matter of the Draft General Plan.

The draft may be viewed online at www.ceresgeneralplanupdate.com while the agenda of the Oct. 30 meeting and related staff report may be viewed on the city's website at: http://www.ci.ceres.ca.us/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_10302017-171
Because of the file size, the link may take a few moments to download.

In March city leaders decided to tweak the 1997 General Plan to allow for more industrial and commercial growth west of Highway 99.

With the alternative finally chosen, consultants Dyett & Bhatia are finalizing a blueprint for how Ceres could grow for the next 20 years. When the General Plan is adopted it will be the foundation for an update of the Zoning Code and the nexus study for Public Facility Fees.

The new General Plan is intended to guide the growth in Ceres through 2035, said Community Development Director Tom Westbrook.

The city's preferred alternative has the capacity to produce about 6,500 new housing units and with it an additional 22,000 residents; and over 12 million to 14 million square feet of new non-residential development, or commercial, industrial and office space.

"We're talking about development capacity, rather than the amount of development that the city could realistically hope to see over a 20-year time frame," said Sophie Martin, the consultant's project manager on the General Plan update. "There is more than enough land capacity within the General Plan planning area to serve the city's needs much beyond the year 2035, so really it's going to be the market and other forces that determine how much development occurs."

The growth plan alternatives may also result in four times the amount of existing office space, six times the commercial space, and two times the industrial space currently in the city. Westbrook said any of the three alternatives has the capacity to accommodate a 50 percent increase in Ceres' population of 47,000 and a 400 percent increase jobs.

The public may contact Westbrook at tom.westbrook@ci.ceres.ca.us, or 538-5778.