Camp Verde's 2004

General Plan

Planning Our Future,
Protecting Our Past
 

Voters approved the 2004 Camp Verde General Plan on March 8, 2005,  59% in favor to 41% opposed. A total of 57% of the registered voters returned ballots in the election.  Camp Verde Town Council members adopted a revised 2004 Camp Verde General Plan on December 1, 2004 with a 6-1 vote.

The General Plan is the primary tool and blueprint for guiding the Town’s future growth and development. It integrates the ideas and desires of the Town’s residents, businesses, and elected officials into a strategy for managing the Town’s future. Arizona Statute requires that every municipality and county have a General Plan. Camp Verde's previous general plan was adopted by the Town Council in 1998. At that time, state law did not require that voters ratify the plan.

 In 1998 and 2000, the State Legislature passed what is called the Growing Smarter Legislation and Growing Smarter Plus which mandates what elements are to be included in the 2003 General Plan and when the General Plan must be completed. For Camp Verde, seven (7) elements are required for the 2004 General Plan. These elements provide the framework and policies necessary to achieve long-term goals and make day-to-day decisions in just about every area in which town government is involved. The Camp Verde 2004 General Plan includes:

                       * Preface                                                 *  Introduction  

     * History & Culture                               * Land Use  

     * Economic Development                  * Growth Area     

     * Cost of Development                         *Housing 

     * Transportation & Circulation           * Environmental Planning  

      * Open Space & Recreation                * Water Resources

     * Trails Map                                                 * Circulation Map

   * Land Use Map                                            * Growth/Open Space Map

 *Water Resources Map                               * Public Facilities Map                            

                         * Recreation & Points of Interest

The Town Council and Planning & Zoning Commission use the General Plan to evaluate land use changes. It is used by Town Staff in reviewing building and development regulations and preparing recommendations on projects. It is used by citizens and neighborhood groups to understand the Town’s long-range plans and proposals for different areas. The General Plan also provides the basis for the Town’s development regulations and its Capital Improvement Plan.

Now that the General Plan has been ratified by voters, staff will amend and write new ordinances that will reflect what is in the General Plan and how the voters want the Town to develop.

State law states that for a municipality the size of Camp Verde, the General Plan meet the following requirements:

Land Use – Must:

• Designate uses of the land for housing, business, industry, agriculture, recreation, education, public buildings and grounds, open space and other categories of public and private uses of land as may be appropriate to the Town.
• Include a statement of the standards and population density and building intensity recommended for the various land use categories included in the plan.
• Identifies specific programs and policies that the Town may use to promote infill or compact form of development activity and locations where those development patterns should be encouraged.
• Includes consideration of air quality and access to incident solar energy for all general categories of land uses.
• Includes policies that address maintaining a broad variety of land uses including the range of uses existing in the municipality when the plan is adopted, readopted or amended.

 Circulation –Must include:

• The general location and extent of existing and proposed freeways, arterial and collector streets, bicycle routes, trails, and any other modes of transportation as may be appropriate and correlated with the land use element.

 Environmental Planning – Must include analysis, policies, and strategies to:

• Address anticipated effects of the General Plan elements on air quality, water quality and natural resources associated with proposed development under the General Plan. The polices and strategies must apply to the entire community.

Growth Area -  Must include policies and implementation strategies that are designed to:

• Make automobile, transit and other multi-modal circulation more efficient, make infrastructure expansion more economical and provide for a rational pattern of land development.
• Conserve significant natural resources and open space areas in the growth area and coordinate their location to similar areas outside the growth area’s boundaries.
• Promote the public and private construction of timely and financially sound infrastructure expansion through the use of infrastructure funding and financing planning that is coordinated with development activity.

 Cost of Development – Must identify:

• The mechanisms that are allowed by law and that can be used to fund and finance additional public services necessary to serve the development.
• Policies to ensure that any mechanisms that are adopted by the Town under this element result in a beneficial use to the development bear a reasonable relationship to the burden imposed on the Town to provide for additional necessary public services to the development and are imposed according to law.

Open Space & Recreation - Must specifically include:

•     A comprehensive inventory of open space areas, recreational resources and designations of access points to open space areas and resources

•     An analysis of forecasted needs, policies for managing and protecting open space areas and resources and implementation strategies to acquire additional open space areas and further establish recreational resources

 When applying open space element or growth element of the General Plan, the Town must not designate private land or state trust land as open space, recreation, conservation or agriculture unless the Town receives the written permission of the landowner OR provides an alternative, economically viable designation in GP or zoning ordinance allowing AT LEAST ONE DWELLING PER ACRE. 

Water Resources – Must address:

• The known legally and physically available surface water, groundwater and effluent supplies.

• The demand for water that will result from future growth projected in the general plan, added to existing uses.

• An analysis of how the demand for water that will result from future growth projected in the general plan will be served by he water supplies identified in subdivision (a) of this paragraph or a plan to obtain additional necessary water supplies.