Escondido staff presents 2024 General Plan annual progress report; commission hears proposed community protection and environmental justice amendments

City planning staff briefed the Escondido Planning Commission on the 2024 General Plan Annual Progress Report (APR) and on proposed amendments to the General Plan’s Community Protection and Community Health & Services elements at the May 13 meeting.

Priscilla Roldan, associate planner, presented the informational APR, which summarizes the city’s 2024 accomplishments across multiple General Plan elements. Roldan said the APR is informational only and that staff will present the same material to the City Council before posting the report on the city website. She told commissioners the city reached portions of its Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) in 2024 — notably 23% of above-moderate units and progress toward moderate, low- and very-low income categories — and listed several major housing and infrastructure projects in construction or planning, including Palomar Heights and Quincy Senior Apartments.

Following the APR, Brooke Peterson, the staff lead on the General Plan amendments, outlined a multi-year effort to update the Community Protection element (safety) and the Community Health & Services element to reflect new state requirements, climate adaptation planning and environmental justice policies. Peterson said the Community Protection update was initiated in 2021 and that state legislation including SB 379, AB 747, SB 99 and AB 1409 requires expanded evacuation analysis, consideration of isolation/risk for developments with limited egress, and identification of evacuation locations for multiple hazard scenarios.

Peterson said the state law trigger created a requirement under SB 1000 to adopt an environmental justice element or related goals and policies because two elements were being updated. The city used CalEnviroScreen outputs, income overlays, and local criteria to identify environmental justice communities and then drafted two new goals, nine policies and 84 subpolicies addressing pollution reduction, public facilities, healthy food access, civic engagement, housing safety and active transportation. Staff also coordinated the Community Protection update with CAL FIRE and submitted material to the State Board of Forestry and California Geologic Survey for review.

Commissioners asked technical questions about RHNA reporting, the CalEnviroScreen thresholds used to identify environmental justice communities, and how the evacuation-route analyses would apply to limited-access parcels. Staff explained that the city’s ECAP (Escondido Climate Action Plan) mapping uses a 50% CalEnviroScreen threshold for local priority areas and that the draft safety policies were refined in coordination with CAL FIRE; the draft community protection element has also been submitted to the Board of Forestry and to the California Geologic Survey.

Staff described outreach conducted during 2021–2024: more than 10 in-person and virtual events early in the process, bilingual materials and recent community and stakeholder workshops in March and April that included Spanish-language support. Peterson said staff intends to return to the Planning Commission in June for formal action on the amendments and then forward the amendments to City Council in July; staff is also preparing an addendum to the General Plan EIR to meet CEQA requirements.

Commissioners expressed support for the approach and asked for clarification about future outreach and the review process. Peterson said no additional public workshops are scheduled outside the formal Planning Commission and City Council hearings but that staff had offered broad public opportunities earlier in the process and had targeted stakeholder outreach. The City’s Office of Emergency Services receives the community protection update for filing after local adoption; CAL FIRE was the primary state reviewer engaged during preparation, Peterson said.

No formal action was required or taken on the APR itself; staff will return in June for the amendment hearing and to complete required state reviews and CEQA documentation.