City plan draws little comment
Friday, January 11, 2008
Other than assorted city and county leaders, turnout was small Thursday night for the open house to view the latest draft of the city’s new comprehensive plan.
Still, those who did show up were actively involved in studying each of the large color-coded regional zoning maps laid out on tables in the Little Theater in the Civic Building. A number of attendees asked questions of Brian Comer of HNTB Corp., the city’s consultant on the plan. Some used small sticky notes to mark suggested changes to the zoning layout.
“Some issues down around the airport, maybe expanding that area,” said City Engineer Keith Beatty, looking at the notes stuck on the easel-mounted zoning map for the entire city. “Larger lots, some roadwork, et cetera. But most of it’s been pretty minor.”
The Emporia State University area, downtown and the Newman Regional Health area were the three focus points of the new plan, which when adopted will be the city’s first comprehensive planning tool in 10 years.
Issues expected to come up in the future include the potential creation of a “black and gold” district downtown for the Emporia State community, as well as the question of which direction Newman will grow if it outgrows its current site: south toward residential areas, or north across 12th Avenue, into the old College of Emporia campus.
“The biggest thing I think that we’re really looking at is how commercial development affects the residential and how industrial affects the residential areas, and how those also affect the future dividing of the city,” Beatty said. “One of the comments I’ve made is, we know which way we’re gonna grow. It’s just how we’re gonna grow.”
That direction would be to the northwest, where most of the area past Americus Road is marked for future residential use.
“I think that for a community our size,” Beatty said, “we’re going to need a certain amount of commercial area, but with that, you’re going to have a large amount of residential, too.”
One interested observer of the maps was Bill Borst, the leader of the newly established Multi-Use Path Planning Committee.
“Our first objective, of course, is going to be connecting schools to children, getting them back toward school and that sort of thing,” Borst said. “But eventually we want to connect the recreation areas and the university and the vo-tech and the high school so anybody can go to school, to work, to shopping, to recreation, whatever they want to do. So that means lots of sidewalks.”
Borst said he thought the plan was conducive to putting the sidewalk project together.
“We really want to work with (officials) on this,” he said. “The committee that we have, and our responsibility, we’ll want to work very closely with, especially the planning board.”
The city comprehensive plan will be reviewed in five years, then reviewed more in-depth in 10 years, according to Beatty.
Wasp (anonymous) says...
No need to worry about Newman expanding as long as it remains a 4-hour-wait-band-aid-station!
January 11, 2008 at 9:48 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
slipandslide (anonymous) says...
about the only way newmans will grow is if it becomes a level three hospital but until then we go out of town for anything bigger than a scratch
January 11, 2008 at 10:42 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
emporian (anonymous) says...
You must have nurses to do anything. They arent going to be growing if they dont have enough nurses for the size they are now.
January 11, 2008 at 10:52 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
dougmarshall (anonymous) says...
With a genius for a city engineer, this should be an easy process.
January 12, 2008 at 9:29 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
treetrunk (anonymous) says...
One of the main problems in Emporia is the lack of information given the public. There are no communications between the government bodies and the public. This "master plan" open house should have been advertised in advance, listed on a monthly calendar and posted in the newspaper weeks in advance. Letting the public know about an open house on the day it is happening will always result in a small turn out. I am amazed that this plan is so dynamic that nothing will be changing in the near future. I guess I will just mark my calendar for the years 2013 and 2018 so I will not miss the next open houses.
January 12, 2008 at 12:16 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )