Deconstruction of Collected Information

After collection of all discoverable information relating to Arroyo Grande’s Planned Developments, there was a need to go through the

information. The purpose of this is to extract information to include as part of the legislative history. This is necessary because these information sources include language not necessarily relevant to this project. This includes

recitals, findings of fact, and Council voting results in the approval ordinances. It also includes background and other information in the design manuals not necessary in developing a legislative history for the developments.

5.4.1 Approval Ordinances

Amendments to the Planned Developments are numerous. However, the relevant revisions were often buried under unnecessary legal language. Figure 11 illustrates this point.

Figure 11. Ordinance 196 C.S with necessary information highlighted.

This Ordinance illustrates the amount of information not directly related to the legislative history of the development that was extracted and placed in

Following approval of Oak Park Acres, the Council adopted Ordinance 196 C.S. This clarified the underlying zoning designation for a particular parcel in Oak Park Acres. Only two lines in an entire Ordinance are relevant to include in the legislative history of Oak Park Acres. Therefore it is not necessary to include a large part of this information with this project.

The next step in organizing important information from the approval ordinances for Arroyo Grande’s Planned Developments was to organize the information obtained. This allows for easy tracking where the information came from, how it was amended over time, and by what ordinance those amendments occurred. A table was created (Appendix D) that allowed for the insertion of the information identified as important from the approval

ordinances. This table was also used to number each section included in the table. It also allowed space to track how the individual pieces were changed over time.

5.4.2 Rancho Grande Planned Development Guidebooks

Rancho Grande is the only Planned Development out of the five approved by Arroyo Grande to have comprehensive design manuals created and approved for the development. These were created based upon each of the three phases of development within Rancho Grande. This created both and opportunity and a challenge. The opportunity came from the inclusion of detailed information as to how the development should be constructed and maintained in the future. The challenge, however, resulted from such detailed

City. This meant that the detailed information found within each of the design manuals was likely to be difficult to include with the general information found in the other Planned Developments.

Los Robles de Rancho Grande

The Design Manual for Los Robles de Rancho Grande (City of Arroyo Grande, 1994) was the first manual to be reviewed. For the purposes of this project, Los Robles is referenced as PD-1.2.1 in order to help track which phase of development was being discussed. The Los Robles Design Manual was setup in the following manner and totaled 175 pages:

1. Introduction

2. Governing Powers and Policies 3. Processing Your Plans

4. Site Design

5. Oak Tree Protection 6. Building Design 7. Landscape Design 8. Construction Protocol 9. Appendix

Sections 4-7 of the Design Manual contain information relevant to this project. These Sections contain regulations related to site development standards and other important aspects of the development, including oak tree protection.

The Design Manual also identifies and defines the different levels of regulations it contains. The three most important levels identified for this

project were requirements, standards, and guidelines. These were often the most compulsory regulations. Other regulations are identified as being optional. These compulsory regulations were compiled into a list format with appropriate notation of the different Sections and Subsections in which the regulations were contained. This results in the consolidation of the 175 pages of the Los Robles de Rancho Grande Design Manual into 22 pages of

compulsory regulations.

The Highlands at Rancho Grande

The approach used for the consolidation of Los Robles de Rancho Grande was also used for the consolidation of The Highlands at Rancho Grande Design Manual (City of Arroyo Grande, 1999). The Highlands Design Manual was organized into the following Sections:

1. Introduction

2. Site and Landscape Design 3. Architectural Guidelines 4. Approval Process 5. Forms

6. Appendix

Although the Section titles are different between The Highlands and Los Robles, both cover a majority of the same topics, including oak tree protection. The Highlands Design Manual lists the regulations with bullet points of either “R” or “G”. An “R” indicates a Requirement and a “G” indicates a Guideline. These designations are helpful to identifying which

items included in the Design Manual are compulsory and which are simply optional. The Highlands at Rancho Grande Design Manual was reduced from a 114-page document to a 14-page document of compulsory regulations.

Las Jollas de Rancho Grande

The Las Jollas de Rancho Grande Design Manual (City of Arroyo Grande, 1997) was the final design manual to be consolidated. The Design Manual contained much of the same compulsory regulations contained in The Highlands at Rancho Grande Design Manual. It also had the same Section outline. The Las Jollas de Rancho Grande Design Manual was reduced from a 68-page document to a 6-page document of compulsory regulations.