FIVE NAMED TO LANCASTER COMMITTEE : GROWTH STUDY SPURS PLANNING REVIEW.

Byline: Karen Maeshiro Daily News Staff Writer

A water agency director, the head of a non-profit group, a car salesman, a sales representative, and a homeowner activist were named to a committee to help review Lancaster's blueprint for development.

Lancaster councilmembers each appointed a person to a citizens committee to assist planning staff in its update of the General Plan, which was last revised in 1992.

``In order to keep it a viable document and reflective of the desires of the community, it should be updated every five years,'' said Brian Hawley, director of community development.

The council voted 5-0 to approve the appointments at Thursday's meeting. The city has budgeted $60,000 for the update process, which is expected to be completed by July 1997, Hawley said.

The appointees were Antelope Valley-East Kern Water Agency director and businessman George Lane; Jenni Moran, executive director of Desert Havens Enterprises; Jesse Osborne, a sales consultant with Saturn of Antelope Valley; Gary Simpson, a sales representative with Waste Management and Lancaster Chamber of Commerce director; and Sharon Smock, a community activist and member of the Northeastern Rural Landowners Association.

The five people will join two representatives each from nine community groups and agencies: the Building Industry Association; the Antelope Valley Board of Realtors; the Antelope Valley Board of Trade; the Chamber of Commerce; the Lancaster Coalition of Neighborhood Organizations; the Antelope Valley Committee on Aging; the Lancaster Old Town Site Committee; the Recreation and Environmental Council; and the United Way.

The makeup of the committee was suggested by city planning staffers, who compiled a list of established local organizations, primarily those are involved in land-use planning, Hawley said.

The intent is to provide broader representation than at the last General Plan update, when each council member appointed three representatives to the review panel, he said.

The first meeting of the citizens committee is scheduled for September, Hawley said.

The citizens committee will assist planning staff in reviewing, updating and modifying the issues and findings of the city's General Plan.

The General Plan needs to be re-evaluated and updated in part because new growth forecasts by the Southern California Association of Governments are significantly lower than the group's projections contained in the current General Plan, a city staff report said.

In addition, before the General Plan was adopted in 1992, planning staff suggested the plan be updated at least every four to five years, the report said.

SCAG now estimates the city's population will total 212,829 by 2010, compared to 234,228, and households will number 66,974, instead of 104,614. But SCAG predicts there will be 70,244 jobs, a 12 percent increase over the previous estimate of 62,529, the report said.

The 1992 General Plan designated more than 40,000 acres, or about 63 square miles, for residential use within the city's incorporated boundaries, the report said. Only about 8,900 acres of this residential land is currently developed, the report said.

Under the new SCAG estimates, Lancaster's population by 2020 will be about 294,000. To house that number of people, the city would need about 95,000 housing units.

``Even if all were of single family constuction, only 21,000 acres would be needed to accommodate them, which represents about half of the current inventory of 40,000 acres allocated for residential use,'' the report said.

The report said it will be necessary to examine alternatives to the current land use map, ``which would allow more realistic and sustainable land use densities and development patterns based on growth projections through the year 2020,'' the report said.