Navigating the Plan
About the Countywide Plan
In 2010, the Board of Supervisors set out to establish a vision for the future of the county as a whole and subsequently adopted a Countywide Vision in 2011 after two years of input from the community and the county’s 24 cities and towns. Following the adoption of the Countywide Vision, which calls for the creation of a “complete county,” the Board adopted the County paradigm and job statements in 2012.
In 2015, San Bernardino County launched an effort to go further than any county or city has ever gone with a general plan by creating a web-based comprehensive “complete county” plan.
As a “complete county” plan, the Countywide Plan is a collection of planning tools to guide future decisions, investments, and improvements, and to facilitate grass-roots community action throughout the county. The Countywide Plan includes three main components:
Components of the Countywide Plan
Policy Plan
In a new approach to county planning, the Policy Plan:
- Serves as the County’s General Plan for the unincorporated areas.
- Addresses supportive services for adults and children, healthcare, public safety, and other regional county services provided to both incorporated and unincorporated areas.
The Policy Plan is composed of 11 Elements which include an introduction, purpose, principles, Goals, Policies, Policy Maps, Policy Tables, and other Policy Tools. The Policy Plan is a legal document, adopted by County Ordinance. Any changes to the Policy Plan must follow a specific process described under “Amending the Policy Plan.”
A Program Environmental Impact Report will also provide environmental clearance for the County Policy Plan and facilitate streamlined CEQA review for future planning and development projects. The Draft EIR can be downloaded from the Document Download page.
Business Plan
The Business Plan contains governance policies and operational metrics that outline the County’s approach to providing municipal and regional services.
The Business Plan includes:
- The Governance Element
- The Tracking & Feedback System
- The Implementation Plan
The components of the Business Plan may be updated as necessary.
New measures may be added to the Tracking & Feedback System as the Plan matures. The Implementation Plan will be updated as items are completed.
Communities
The Countywide Plan established a new system of community planning that documents the topics most important to each community and emphasizes a greater focus on community self-reliance, grass-roots action, and implementation. Driving this effort are the Community Action Guides (CAGs), which outline the aspirations of unincorporated communities and set forth a plan of action to realize desired changes.
Community Action Guides are living documents that will be updated as actions are completed, and new actions are added.
Goals, policies, land use, and infrastructure decisions for all unincorporated communities are addressed in the Policy Plan.
Tip: Search by geography to see which parts of the Policy Plan and Governance Element apply to your community.
Searching the Countywide Plan
How Search Works
All decision- and action- oriented content in the Policy Plan, Governance Element, and Community Action Guides (including goals, policies, maps, tables, focus statements, and action statements) is tagged with one or more key topics and associated with applicable geographic areas.
On the search page, topics are grouped in larger categories according to the most related Policy Plan or Business Plan Element. Because Regional Services is a unique topic that is woven throughout the Countywide Plan, it is separated as a stand-alone category. Below the topics, geographies are listed by region.
To start your search, click on the Topic or Geography you are most interested in. Search results are presented in tabs according to where they live in the Countywide Plan. Policy Materials will populate under the “Policy Plan” tab. Focus Statements and Action Statements from Community Action Guides display under the “Communities” tab. Goals and Policies from the Governance Element shows under the “Business Plan” tab.
From the search results page, you can further refine your search by selecting additional topics and/or geographies. For the broadest search, select only one term, such as “Fire”, to see all of the content tagged with the term “Fire”. To narrow your search, select more terms, such as “Fire” and “Oak Glen”, to see only content tagged with both terms.
A Cross Section of Topics
The Countywide Plan provides a variety of tools to guide decisions, investments, and improvements, and to facilitate grass-roots community action throughout the county. While these tools operate in concert to fulfill the Countywide Vision, each includes a variety of interrelated topics. Each goal, policy, map, table, focus statement, and action statement in the Policy Plan, Governance Element, and Community Action Guides are listed under the most related Goal, Element, and Community, but many items also reinforce or relate to topics discussed in other parts of the plan.
To help navigate the various components of the Countywide Plan, a robust search tool allows to you search all three components of the Countywide Plan to see how the County is addressing key topics from a policy, business, and community standpoint.
A Diverse Geographic Landscape
The Countywide Plan includes tools that apply to various geographic areas within the county. Each Community Action Guide applies to a specific unincorporated community (or group of communities). Most of the Policy Plan and Governance Element applies to the entire unincorporated county, but there are exceptions. Goals and Policies related to Regional Services apply to incorporated areas as well as unincorporated ones. A few Policies are area-specific and only apply to one community or one region.
To understand which Goals, Policies, Maps and Tables from the Policy Plan and Governance Element apply to incorporated areas, unincorporated areas, and each unincorporated community, the search tool allow you search the Countywide plan by geographic area.