Hello all,
I will publish next the few sheets that are at the moment the GMP for the CDS. This is a work in progress - not only on my side, as we can understand that more drawings must be made - but also because it will be discussed in this forum and at the Guild, previously to further discussion at RA level.
You may know the excellent GMP made by Symo which is right now in force, and you may have attended the discussion that led to that formulation. This 2009 plan is an expansion of the previous plan, and before we go into details, it's best to understand what is a GMP.
A GMP is always a work-in-progress document, since it relates to something that is continuously changing - territory. This is even more true in Second Life, where new islands can be added by the click of a button, terrain be lifted within minutes, a house be rezzed in one moment. So, a GMP has two primary functions:
a) record faithfully, at a given data, what the territory consists of. The data collected refers both to geographical assets such as orography, transport ways, protected areas, etc, as also to more demographically related data, such as densities of ocupation, existence of social infrastructure and similar issues.
b) preview, with base in the recorded data and by means of other instruments such as polls, direct orders from the managing power, etc, what will be the natural expansion or organization of the territory. (In RL, for example, where territories are generally finite, GMPs can and do record ecological and agrarian zones to be kept, while at the same time organize the expansion of residential zones). In SL, a GMP must thus preview the expansion of the territory, since this is a feature of the SL territory itself - it is expandable at any moment.
The following plan then has two chapters - the first drawings and table refer to the territory as it is now, in March of 2009. The following drawings are the expansion drawings, that include not only the stupendous work done by Symo as also several new features, that weren't an issue at the time Symo drew the plan in force:
i) the desire of many of our citizens to have a taller mountain in our territory
ii) the possibility of joining the Al-Andaluz territory and community to the CDS, which has led also to the conception of Pelagic sims (watery sims with low density that can be used as a watery band that connects all the clusters of the Plan)
iii) the existence of an Act that allows private development of sims, which has led to the appearance of a dedicated project - the Monastery sim.
This plan does also have a new feature that Symo didn't need, which are the definition of Detail Plans. Detail Plans are special areas of a territory that have a plan of its own (while in accordance to the General Plan). The Detail feature allows the territory planner to look closer at the territory in that point, and allows him to create special "rules" for that territory. In RL, Detail Plans are often used either to protect determinate areas (such as an area of particular agrarian or ecological interest), dive into detail into city centres so as to define commercial and other characteristics, or, very importantly, they are used to protect the urban issue around a monument, 'freezing' the time in that area, by inclusively dictating the use of building materials, etc.
The Detail Plans that are defined in this GMP are not so restrictive 
In fact, their intention it's just the opposite. They are defined to contain two particular areas:
- The Al-Andaluz cluster, which has features of its own and has already several sims. In this GMP, the option was made to preview only the location of Alhambra and Generalife, and mandate a third sim to provide a natural coastline in the connection with the rest of the CDS cluster. The location and characteristics of the remaining sims are best confined in teh scope of a Detail Plan.
- The Monastery Sim (location: AM-West), for which there is already a development plan, but which requires for execution some political and economical conditions. When these are realized, the development plan can become the Detail Plan and the sim can be developed.
Many of you will be surprised at the apparent simplicity of the drawings that i will post next. The reason is this: a GMP in the territory conditions of Second Life, and in what it relates to a growing, changing community, as we have seen, must be the less dictatorial as possible, so that a great deal of liberty can be used when finally planning the development of sim X or sim Z. So you will not see detail, but will see only the minimal conditions for expansion and organization of our territory. This should be the tone of the further discussion on this matter: think minimal conditions, not detail.
but we can have a look at that later on, since it's probable that this sim will have a complex covenant similar to NFS, with City zones and outskirt zones - and we can do the transition that way.