San Mateo is updating its General Plan, which is the plan that expresses the community’s vision for how the City will look, feel, and change over the next 20 years. 

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It is critical that Baywood neighbors' perspectives and priorities are included as part of the City's General Plan.  That is why we are sharing this information with you and encouraging you to sign up for meetings and share your opinions on the top issues facing our City and how you believe they should be addressed.

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So far, as part of the General Plan process, the community has expressed that San Mateo should be: “a vibrant, livable, diverse, and healthy community that respects the quality of its neighborhoods, fosters a flourishing economy, is committed to equity, and is a leader in environmental sustainability.”

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To achieve this vision, the General Plan will include policies that determine what can and cannot be built in the City, including new homes, new businesses, new parks, and improvements to our streets and sidewalks, and how this development will be served. The General Plan also includes actions the City will take to make the community’s vision a reality.

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Every City in California has to have a General Plan to guide and plan for growth, change, and conservation over the long term, usually looking about 20 years out. State law says that General Plans must address many different topics that affect our daily lives, such as:

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• Where housing, businesses, industry, open space, schools, civic buildings, and other land uses will be located, and what density or intensity of use is allowed.

• Where roads, truck routes, bicycle routes, walking trails, and public utilities and facilities will go, and ensures that the City’s infrastructure can serve the future development that is allowed in the General Plan.

• Current and future housing needs for people at all income levels, and housing policies and programs to preserve affordable housing and build new affordable and market-rate housing to meet those needs.

• How to protect our natural resources, such water, air, trees, and hillsides, and how to preserve and improve open spaces, including open space for recreation, for habitat, or for public health and safety.

• Ways to protect residents from harmful or disruptive levels of noise, and to keep the community safe from natural and human-caused hazards, such as earthquakes, landslides, floods, and wildfires, including increased risks from climate change.

• Improving the safety and quality of life for residents of neighborhoods to face a combination of both higher-than-average pollution exposure and social and economic challenges such as low incomes, language barriers, or housing instability.

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These issues affect each of us in San Mateo every day. The homes, streets, parks, schools, and playgrounds in San Mateo today were planned by the people who lived here a generation ago. Those decisions and those plans are still affecting who lives here, who works here, who shops here, who drives here, and what kind of community San Mateo is.

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Now it’s your turn to shape the decisions and the plans that will guide development for the next generation and make San Mateo a place that people will be proud to call home in 2040. YOU are one of the most important parts of the General Plan Update! Go to a neighborhood event, come to a meeting, send the City an email, get on the mailing list, and help ensure that the General Plan represents a true community-based vision for San Mateo.

 

Presentation: https://strivesanmateo.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/General-Plan-Recap-3-27-Presentation.pdf

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Video 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30nEVMXTFiI

 

Video 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ReWLZPaGHg