The Mountain Springs Community Plan is located within the boundary of urban development established by the County 1996 General Plan and provides for the phased development of 1,063 acres for a master planned golf and residential community. The Community Plan contains a variety of land uses that include a range of residential housing options to meet a portion of the future housing needs of Tuolumne County. Even though the density of the Community is less than one home per acre overall the Community Plan has been designed to provide for the development of homes at varying densities ranging from less than one dwelling unit per 2+ acres to up to 15 dwelling units per acre. A variety of housing types including single family detached housing, patio homes, duplexes, condominiums, townhomes, and other multi-family dwellings are accommodated. The Community Plan is proposing 780 of the homes to be sold at general market rates and an additional 15% (117 homes) will provide a moderate level of affordable housing for residents of Tuolumne County. The market rate and affordable homes combined would total 897 homes.
The range of housing types within the Community Plan area will result in a range of pricing alternatives. Because many of the cost issues related to infrastructure, site development, and home construction, exact housing prices cannot be specifically determined at the Community Plan level of entitlement for the market rate homes however, the moderate level of affordable homes will be priced according to County guidelines. Housing types range from large lot single family detached housing to medium and mixed use density attached housing. Housing prices will vary given actual time of development but will reflect comparable pricing to similar housing products with similar community amenities in Tuolumne County and adjacent Counties.
The County 1996 General Plan states that the Community Plan is located within an area identified for new development and also acknowledges that some of the Counties Agricultural lands will need to be subdivided to accommodate future County growth. At this time approximately 76% of County lands are federally owned, 1.3% are state and locally owned, and 23% are privately owned. Approximately half of the privately owned lands have an agriculture designation. Portions of the Community Plan are located on lands that currently have an Agricultural designation. The existing Mountain Springs Golf Course is located on approximately 200 acres and was an approved use on agricultural lands under the previous Williamson Act designation. Even though the existing golf use is not changing the land use is being rezoned in the Community Plan to comply with current County zoning criteria. Approximately 290 acres of Open Space and an additional 32 acres of community parks are also having their Agricultural designation changed to open space and parks and recreation to conform with county criteria. These uses will maintain the open character of the land and provide recreational opportunities on land that currently has restricted access. Approximately 518 acres (less than half of the community plan acres) of Agricultural land are being rezoned to provide for an efficient, balanced mix of uses that are proposed to include 780 market rate homes (in various sizes and price ranges) and an additional 117 affordable home, 35,000 square feet of office and retail commercial, and a tourist oriented lodging facility. The
