Wanda Alvarez

The City of Orange's General Plan aims to guide the future physical and economic composition of its planning area, focusing on the location, type, and intensity of new development and redevelopment to maximize community livability. Key strategic areas include ensuring land use diversity and balanced development, promoting mixed-use development, fostering commercial enterprise and high-quality industrial development, preserving Old Towne, ensuring contextual and environmental compatibility, coordinating planning efforts, and encouraging public involvement. The plan also seeks to provide innovative land use guidance, protect historic areas, support multi-modal transportation, and expand open space and natural resource protection.

This document, the Cultural Resources & Historic Preservation Element of the Orange General Plan, outlines the City's commitment to preserving its cultural and historical heritage. It focuses on five key areas: identifying and protecting historic resources, preserving neighborhood character, providing incentives and education for historic preservation, recognizing and protecting archaeological and cultural resources, and enhancing library services. The plan aims to strengthen community identity, enrich lives, and ensure the long-term protection and appreciation of Orange's unique cultural and historical assets.

This document, the Circulation & Mobility Element of the Orange General Plan, outlines the City of Orange's vision for a balanced, multi-modal transportation network. Its primary purpose is to enhance local and regional circulation, maintain public transportation, develop comprehensive pedestrian, bicycle, and equestrian networks, ensure adequate parking, and improve system aesthetics and safety. The plan aims to increase transportation options, reduce auto-dependency, and guide future development while correlating with land use to manage growth and congestion.

The Economic Development Element of the Orange General Plan outlines goals and policies to promote sustainable, market-driven economic growth and activity without compromising the City's identity, heritage, or quality of life. Key focus areas include maintaining fiscal diversity and balance, retaining and expanding retail businesses, strengthening the economic base and stimulating employment, encouraging economic development through outreach, improving aesthetic viability of business districts, providing sufficient infrastructure, and encouraging affordable workforce housing. The plan aims to cultivate a diverse economic base, increase employment opportunities, enhance fiscal stability, and ensure adequate infrastructure and housing.

The City Council approved and adopted financial management policies to ensure transparency, consistency, and sustainability of the City's finances. These policies provide a roadmap for the annual process, guidelines for meeting fund balance reserves, and guardrails for financial decision-making. The policies include definitions, principles, and changes related to a structurally balanced budget goal, definition of reserves, changes to the reserve policy, and separation of the reserve policy from the pension policy. The policies will be reviewed annually during budget adoption.