Every city in California is required to formulate and adopt a General Plan for the physical development of the community. For newly formed cities like Temecula, this plan must be adopted within 5 years of incorporation. After many public hearings and citizen-driven committee meetings, Temecula’s General Plan was approved in late 1993.

It is said that a General Plan is a blueprint or road map detailing every aspect of how a city will develop and grow. It’s divided into chapters, called "elements". State law dictates that the following 7 elements must be included; land use, housing, circulation, conservation of natural resources, the preservation of open space, the noise environment, and the protection pf public safety. The state also allows other elements of public interest to be included as well. Temecula chose to include the following additional elements; parks and recreation, trails, community design, public facilities and services, and growth management.

When a general plan is fully executed, and in Temecula’s case that will take approximately 40 to 50 years, a community is said to have achieved "buildout". This frightens some people and they have asked me, "Why does every piece of land have to be built on?" This is not quite the same thing. "Buildout" simply means that the land use element has been completed. The land use element contains the zoning that tells us where everything will go. This includes park land and open space, as well as houses and businesses. So all the land isn’t build on, only that land that SHOULD be built on, is.