The new land development rules in a pending Orange Code that Orange County plans to adopt soon don’t adequately address future impacts anticipated from climate change, like extreme heat and population growth expected from climate migration, according to some community stakeholders.
The county’s new comprehensive plan, Vision 2050, does include goals, objectives and policies aimed at mitigating various climate change impacts. But many of those elements lack corresponding regulations in the current Orange Code draft, leaving environmental stakeholders worried about the ability to hold the county accountable to meeting those targets laid out in the comprehensive plan.
The groundwork for both Vision 2050 and the Orange Code began in 2017, with a focus on facilitating more walkable communities and reducing car-dependent development patterns that lead to urban sprawl…