Fortuna approves $846,000 plan update amid $1.8 million deficit

Fortuna is spending $846,000 to redraw its long-term growth map even as city leaders say the budget is $1.8 million in the red, a sharp contrast that puts the price of planning in the middle of a fiscal squeeze. The Fortuna City Council approved the contract with Arcata-based Planwest Partners during a meeting that lasted less than 20 minutes, after a councilmember pulled the item from the consent calendar because of its size.

The contract will pay for the city’s 2060 General Plan update, the document that will guide land use, housing, transportation, safety, noise, climate policy and economic development for decades. In California, General Plans are required by state law and shape nearly every major land-use decision. City officials have also warned that falling behind on the update can threaten local land-use authority, giving the project more weight than a routine planning contract.

Fortuna’s current plan dates to October 2010, when the council certified the program environmental impact report and adopted Fortuna General Plan 2030 as the city’s long-term physical vision. The new plan is supposed to be finished by the end of 2027 and remain in effect through 2060, making this one of the city’s most consequential planning efforts in years.

The spending lands as Fortuna is coping with weaker sales-tax and hotel revenue and higher insurance costs. A separate agenda item on the city’s fiscal problems was pulled and rescheduled for a May meeting, underscoring how quickly the planning bill arrived alongside immediate budget pressure. The contract will be paid partly from the current fiscal year and partly from next year’s budget, and city officials said they have applied for a Community Development Block Grant to help offset some of the cost.

City staff have argued that hiring a regional consultant also limits travel costs and makes the process easier to manage. Planwest Partners already has recent North Coast planning experience, including work that appears in Arcata’s 2024 General Plan and Gateway Area planning materials.

Fortuna has been preparing for the broader update through its Future Fortuna listening campaign and community workshops, part of an effort to gather public input before the technical work advanced. The city is also already reshaping the former Pacific Lumber Company mill site, with 2025 General Plan land-use amendments and the Mill District Specific Plan aimed at new development there.