City of Sacramento General Plan

January 19, 2021

Board President of the Environmental Council of Sacramento, Ralph Propper, submitted the following comments to the City of Sacramento regarding agenda item 15 at their January 19 meeting: 2040 General Plan Update – Draft Land Use Map, Proposed Roadway Changes, and other Key Strategies. Comments are as follows.

The Environmental Council of Sacramento urges prompt action to implement the recommendations of the Mayors’ Commission on Climate Change into the city’s Climate Action and Adaptation Plan. Our Climate Action goals can only be reached by encouraging transit-oriented, infill development. Therefore, ECOS supports the proposal to allow duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes in Single Family zones, which will permit a greater array of housing options in existing single-unit neighborhoods.

– Ralph Propper, ECOS President

Photo by Kamaji Ogino from Pexels

ECOS Comments on Sac County CAP

January 19, 2021

What do we mean, “CAP?”

Why, the Climate Action Plan, of course!

The County of Sacramento is currently working on their Climate Action Plan (CAP). On January 19, ECOS submitted our input on the plan.

Click here to read our letter.

The Plan

Learn more about the Sacramento County Climate Action Plan on the County’s website.

What’s a CAP though?

Climate action plans are comprehensive roadmaps that outline the specific activities that an agency will undertake to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Climate action plans build upon the information gathered by greenhouse gas inventories and generally focus on those activities that can achieve the relatively greatest emission reductions in the most cost effective manner.

The Institute for Local Government

What Is A General Plan?!?

Posted here: January 12, 2021

Created by Tomboy Dru November 10, 2018 via YouTube

With the City of Sacramento working on updating the City General Plan, we thought we would post this fantastic video created by YouTube creator Tomboy Dru, who humorously breaks down what’s in a General Plan, by providing a general explanation of each General Plan element. These elements include land use, environmental resources, recreation and open space, noise, circulation or mobility, safety, energy, and housing or growth area. We highly recommend this video to gain an understanding of this important document, or to refresh your knowledge! Check out her channel for other great urban planning content, as well!


Click here to learn more about the City of Sacramento’s General Plan.

Click here to learn more about the County of Sacramento’s General Plan.

To learn about the general plan where you live, visit your local government websites.

CA Code Update for EV Charging Infrastructure

On December 16, 2020, the Environmental Council of Sacramento (ECOS) submitted comments on the proposed changes to Title 24, Part 11 of the 2022 CALGreen Building Code for the 2021 Triennial Code Adoption Cycle.

In our letter, we recommended that the code update include this:

A working and signed Level 1 outlet (110–120 V) shall be installed at each parking space associated with new residential construction.

This simple provision would provide low-cost infrastructure that works for any EV. It would ensure that Californians living in any type of new housing – low-income, high-income, mixeduse, multifamily, single-family — have convenient access to EV battery charging.

Click here to view our letter.


Photo: Mariordo (Mario Roberto Durán Ortiz), CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Sac County Climate Emergency Declaration

December 17, 2020 Update: we are happy to report that the County of Sacramento has passed the declaration!

December 15, 2020

ECOS has submitted a letter asking the Sacramento Board of Supervisors to vote in support of declaring a Climate Emergency. The item is on the agenda for their December 16, 2020 meeting.

From our letter:

The Environmental Council of Sacramento (ECOS) supports the County’s proposed Climate Emergency Declaration. As Greta Thunberg has told us,
“Humans are very adaptable: we can still fix this. But the opportunity to do so will not last for long. We must start today. We have no more excuses. We cannot solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis. And if solutions within the system are so impossible to find, then maybe we should change the system itself.”
Please demonstrate that our County’s system is up to the task!

Click here to read our letter in full.

Click here to add your voice!


Photo credit: Anders Hellberg, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons