For Union City businesses and employees, the General Plan Update will focus on actions that the City can take to help support local business, expand and diversify the local economy, and create new, high-paying jobs. Economic development is designed to increase individual wealth, create employment opportunities, and generate revenues for the City. In the aftermath of the Great Recession, the City must position itself to be ready for new opportunities that emerge during the recovery. The Updated General Plan Update will provide a foundation for Union City’s economic prosperity.

The General Plan Update is about growing businesses, attracting employers, and providing well-paying jobs.

Increasingly, businesses and employers are seeking to locate or expand in high-quality communities that have quality housing, amenities, and recreational opportunities that attract a skilled workforce and strong consumer base. They also want to be close to strong educational institutions like Cal State East Bay, Chabot College, and Cal State San Jose and trade schools that are creating a well-trained work force for a variety of jobs at all skill levels. The Update represents a great opportunity to refine the City’s economic development strategy to address business retention, evolving retail markets, and changing demographics.

The General Plan Update will:

• Accommodate approximately 5,100 new jobs over 25 years.
• Provide the forum for answering key questions about the supply and mix of employment-generating and residential land, appropriate land use types and patterns that support economic vitality, and target industries and markets that further job growth.
• Conduct a fiscal analysis to better understand the City’s existing and projected financial revenues and expenditures for the planning horizon of the General Plan.
• Focus the City’s economic development strategies into its overall vision and planning framework and address evolving retail markets, employment opportunities, and changing demographics.
• Link the City’s land use plan, economic development strategies, and fiscal sustainability policies and tools to more effectively address the City’s fiscal health.
• Create places that can accommodate the types of employment-oriented development that employers want.
• Retain and expand existing businesses and tourism, attract new enterprises and businesses, and create well-paying jobs.
• Attract advanced manufacturing- and technology-related jobs, many of which require only a high school diploma or some specific training.
• Assist in increasing the City’s tax base, and strengthen City services and recreation opportunities.