After more than a year of meetings and comments, the city is ready to start putting its comprehensive plan into final form.
A meeting to get additional comments on the draft plan drew about eight people Monday evening. The draft has been up for public comment for a few months and is a combination of three earlier plans.
City Engineer Keith Beatty said that some of the people who came were Sertoma members interested in the trails proposed by the plan. Every version so far has included walking trails that go through and around the city.
In its final form, the plan is supposed to outline how the city will grow and develop over the next 15 to 20 years. The city and consultant Brian Comer of the HNTB Corp of Kansas City, Mo., have been taking public comments since October 2005.
Now comes the hard part, Beatty said — putting it all together.
“We’re still working on it, we’re still going over comments, we’re still re-examining stuff,” Beatty said. “But I think we’re getting pretty close.”
Originally, the city had hoped to have the final version of the plan done by the first of next year. It may take a little bit longer than that, Beatty said, and once a final draft is settled on, some changes in the zoning regulations will probably need to happen.
“A lot of things have come out of the meetings that need to be re-examined,” Beatty said.
One possible zoning change in the plan has drawn a lot of discussion: Whether to replace “industrial” zoning with an “employment” zoning category that would cover both heavy commercial and light industrial uses.
That discussion started before the comprehensive plan ever got underway, Beatty said. After Modine closed its doors in July 2005, the commision began a debate on whether the plant should be rezoned commercial for a big-box retailer or remain industrial.
Other topics have included whether to include a university overlay district, what special considerations Newman hospital or the downtown might need, and whether to change the boundaries of the metropolitan area. That last item was eventually dropped from the list, as city and county officials said they wanted to leave the lines as they are.
Comer, Beatty and the planning commission will go through the comments and suggestions received since October and use them to create a final plan for review and approval.
A copy of the draft plan is available at the city’s Web site, www.emporia.ws.