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Working group endorses several growth-area additions, flags traffic concerns at La Cañada and Naranja
Summary
Residents and staff agreed to keep most proposed growth-area designations, add a state-land area and the La Cañada/Naranja corner and La Cholla/Lambert as neighborhood growth areas; members raised traffic-level concerns at La Cañada and Naranja and asked staff to consider multimodal access and infrastructure constraints.
The resident working group reviewed the general-plan "growth areas" map required by state law and provided guidance on additions and refinements, including adding a state-land area at the town's west side, including La Cholla and Lambert as a neighborhood growth area, and extending a larger regional growth-area boundary to Orange Grove.
Growth areas are locations where multi-modal transportation, a mix of uses and infrastructure improvements may be appropriate. Staff said the map contains two tiers: tier 1 regional commercial centers and tier 2 neighborhood commercial nodes. Participants generally favored retaining the existing growth areas and adding specific nodes where recent approvals or near-term activity make the designation accurate.
Residents expressed concern about traffic capacity at some intersections. One participant said, "Woodburn is already a disaster for those of us who try to get out of there," highlighting local worries about cut-through traffic and existing level-of-service issues. Another participant asked whether designating the La Cañada/Naranja corner as a growth area might commit the town to future infrastructure expansions that are not feasible; staff agreed that any development would require traffic analysis and possible improvements.
On the Mercado del Rio corridor and other nodes, participants recommended targeted refinements rather than wholesale redesignation. Staff said map accuracy helps the town, property owners and the public understand where activity and infrastructure investment are expected, but noted that land-use and zoning entitlements still govern specific development rights.
Staff said they would carry the working group's input into the next public-review materials and would revisit the planning-area boundary and urban-service-boundary comments at the next meeting.
