Saturday Special: City Council Meets The Consultants
Monday's Special Council Workshop Session will be Council's first oppotunity to interact with American Structurepoint
The City’s Comprehensive Plan
The City’s Comprehensive Plan, last adopted in 2005, is due to be updated. And on Monday, October 23rd at 6:00 p.m., City Council will hold a public workshop meeting to meet with American Structurepoint, the consulting firm chosen by the city to undertake this work.
What is a Comprehensive Plan?
A comprehensive plan serves as a vital roadmap for a community's growth, development, and sustainability. It integrates various elements, including land use, transportation, housing, infrastructure, and environmental conservation, to ensure that development is both strategic and coherent. By setting forth a clear vision and detailed guidelines, this plan acts as a foundation upon which community leaders and stakeholders can make informed decisions that cater to current needs without compromising the future. Moreover, it aids in prioritizing investments, fostering economic development, and promoting a harmonious coexistence of diverse land uses. A well-crafted comprehensive plan also ensures that a community remains resilient, adaptive, and forward-thinking, capable of responding to emerging challenges and opportunities, from demographic shifts to environmental changes. By fostering a holistic approach, it ensures that the community’s resources are utilized efficiently, benefits are equitably distributed, and the quality of life for all residents is enhanced.
What did our old plan say?
Troy’s Current Comprehensive Plan serves as a pivotal tool for orchestrating and managing the city's growth. Like any comprehensive plan, it presents the city's official policies on long-term development and land use, dictating what activities can occur where. The city's development regulations and standards must align with the direction of this Plan. Updated every five years, the 2005 version is a 20-year blueprint with its predecessor from 1989.
The creation of the Comprehensive Plan followed a two-fold method. Initially, a comprehensive analysis provided a detailed portrait of Troy. After the preliminary draft, the process pivoted to engage the public through limited visioning sessions and Planning Commission workshops. This phase concentrated on shaping a creative response to significant community concerns, establishing clear goals, and designing actionable steps to tackle anticipated challenges. The outcomes were classified into:
Goals: Main objectives.
Strategies/Policies: Approaches to achieve set goals.
Related Initiative: Preliminary steps.
Output Measures: Parameters and metrics to quantify or measure success.
Initiated in 2003 at Troy High School, a few visioning sessions helped identify key community questions. The insights from these sessions led to the development of overarching themes:
Economic Development: Troy boasts a commendable history of economic progression, which has provided the city with quality employment opportunities, a robust economic foundation, and the means to offer excellent civic facilities.
Physical Growth: There's a consensus for growth as long as it's strategic, consistent, and well-planned.
Housing and Commercial Space: The need for continuous surveillance of housing options and the equilibrium between commercial demand and supply is acknowledged. Zoning measures would need to be employed to ensure this balance.
Revitalization: While growth is vital, revamping and upkeeping the older parts of the city is also a priority.
City's Identity: The aim is to elevate Troy as a distinctive destination, with Downtown Troy, renowned for its distinctive stores and eateries, being pivotal to this aspiration.
Community Spaces: Open spaces, recreational areas, and parks are paramount for community well-being, warranting ongoing emphasis.
These themes, in turn, influenced the division of the Comprehensive Plan into 14 distinct chapters:
Introduction
Community Profile
Population and Demographic Trends
Housing
Economic Trends
Physical Characteristics and Natural Resources
Utilities
Transportation and Mobility
Land Use Trends
Downtown Troy Historic District
Community Facilities and Services
Parks, Recreation, and Open Space
Visioning
Future Land Use and Thoroughfare Plan
The initial 12 chapters harness quantitative data, chronicling the city's journey and current status. Historical data within these chapters offers a trajectory of Troy's future direction. Chapter 13 houses the goals and strategies underpinning the city's vision, while Chapter 14 outlines the Future Land Use and Thoroughfare Plan. Feedback from public visioning events, surveys, and sessions contributed to the goals, strategies, and measures found in Chapter 13. These insights, coupled with data from Chapters 13 and 14, are streamlined in the Executive Summary's Implementation Plan.
You can access the plan here.
The Key to Good Planning: Public Participation
Any good comprehensive plan requires full and robust public participation. The consultants are kicking off that phase of the process on October 23rd with their presentation to City Council. Another presentation will be made to the City’s Planning Comission on October 25th. There will also be efforts to garner public participation at various public events and venues througout the next few months.
The consultants are also putting foward an online survey that can be accessed here. Respondents to the survey will be asked 25 questions about what the future of the community should look like. It is pivotally important that residents take ten minutes and thoughtfully fill out the survey. Your ideas and your opinions matter to help create our community in a hometown for future generations!
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