But before residents could give feedback on a range of alternatives for 41 proposed "change areas" to the existing General Plan land use designations, questions surfaced about the process behind the General Plan update.

At a meeting of the Butte County General Plan Citizens Advisory Committee at Little Chico Creek School, some initially wanted to simply throw out some of the new change areas, which include the possibility of residential development in unincorporated county land, Gridley, Biggs, into the foothills, and north and west of Chico.

But Tim Snellings, director of the county Department of Development Services, said it would be silly to debate potential change areas without the county first putting them on the table, and then providing additional information.

He said the mission of Thursday night's meeting was to finalize three alternatives for each "potential change area" to forward to the Planning Commission. He compared the alternatives to "bookends" for each potential area, because each alternative ranged from keeping an area zoned for agriculture to building a number of homes.

Snellings said this was not the meeting for residents to take up "passionate positions" about potential change areas, and said that opportunity will come in the next workshop series.

"I really feel strongly we understand where we are in the process," he said.

While anyone can add a change area, only the Board of Supervisors can remove it from the list, he said.

Snellings said the end goal of the process is to develop a plan for the next 23 years that plans for a projected growth of 100,000 more people and jobs throughout the county, including Chico. Snellings said the process began by looking at one million acres of land in the county and asking which areas have potential for future growth.

Then, like a funnel, the process has now narrowed down the one million acres to the 118,000 acres currently identified as possible growth areas, he said. That figure includes 29,000 acres in the Chico and Oroville city limits.

Snellings said the county will then study the strengths of each potential growth area and then come up with information as a basis for future decisions. Then residents will have data to talk about those areas and not make decisions because they live either live next door and don't want growth, or own the land and would like to see it developed.

In January through April, the county will take all the information and narrow down the growth area to 15,000 to 30,000 acres, he said.

John Anderson of New Urban Builders said the process was like learning how to juggle flaming chain saws without learning how to avoid getting burned. He said posing possible growth areas gets everyone aggravated.

Resident Elizabeth Devereaux said she was confused by the process. She said the last update for the Chico General Plan started out by defining a vision for Chico. She said it seems the decisions in this process are driven by development, not a larger vision for the community.

"It just feels like it's being driven by the wrong process," she said.

Pete Calarco, assistant director of development services in Butte County, said the county General Plan process is "another style" and is not directly property-owner driven. He said the county is focusing on a process of an "outreach effort" to have the best General Plan through the greatest participation. He said the county is trying to encourage everyone to become involved in the process, including residents, business owners and land owners.

Calarco said some of the potential growth areas are derived from the opportunity for landowners to make changes to their property. He said what's happened in other jurisdictions is an entity adopts a general plan, and then someone comes and says they want to do something different with their property. He said the county wants to get all that on the table now, so it can have the best General Plan based on updated policies. It may end up that a change a landowner would have wanted is excluded because of the process.

"The message that we're tying to send out there is everyone needs to part in that process," Calarco said.

One resident pointed out that keeping an area on the list gives the county a chance to put a "zero growth" alternative on it. He said if the area were to be taken off the radar completely, someone could then submit a plan for 100 homes. If the county keeps it on the list, it can say it looked at it the area and it is not appropriate for growth, he said.

Those alternatives will go forward to the county Planning Commission Sept. 28, then on to the Board of Supervisors in October.

Staff writer Jenn Klein can be reached at 896-7767 or jklein@chicoer.com.

BACKGROUND: Some 41 "change areas" are currently proposed to the existing Butte County General Plan land use designations.

WHAT'S NEW: Questions surfaced about the General Plan update process at a meeting of the Butte County General Plan Citizens Advisory Committee. The committee worked through each "change area" to finalize three alternatives, which range from a number of homes to keeping the land for agricultural use.

WHAT'S NEXT: The alternatives will go before the county Planning Commission in September.