What is a General Plan?

Monte Sereno is updating its General Plan, a document that serves as a road map guiding the community’s vision into actionable policies and programs over the next 20 years. General plans are required to have several elements focusing on particular aspects of the build and natural environment: 

• Land Use 

• Housing (updated in May 2024) 

• Circulation 

• Open Space 

• Conservation 

• Noise 

• Safety 

• Environmental Justice (new requirement) 

Cities can organize these elements as standalone or shared chapters, as well as accompany them with optional elements and an implementation guide. In Monte Sereno, our current general plan was adopted in 2008. The General Plan Update will follow the same general format as the current 2008 General Plan and will update policies where needed. This will include new Environmental Justice policies, addressing State requirements that address wildfire evacuation issues, linkages to Santa Clara County’s ongoing Multi- Jurisdictional Hazard Mitigation Plan (HMP) update, and more. 

As part of the General Plan Update, the project team will pursue environmental documentation appropriate for the scale of change envisioned by the Policy Framework.