"They're literally just kicking off, and we are doing our first public engagement piece, a survey," Director of Development Services Melissa McCollum said. "We hope to follow up with an open house that will go over the survey results on Jan. 25."
The comprehensive plan applies to city limits and the city's extraterritorial jurisdiction for planning purposes.
"It's how we can utilize land, looking at some of our environmental features ... and what we hope future land uses will be for either vacant property and/or potentially redevelopment areas," McCollum said.
The comprehensive plan is designed to be long reaching and looks out 10-30 years for build-out. The city has around 18% of developable land available and needs to be strategic when it comes to allowing in developments.
The downtown master plan, on the other hand, is a much more focused plan with a three- to 10-year timeline. The survey touches on the downtown area and what improvements or growth residents and community members are interested in seeing over the next several decades.
"People that are interested in downtown are also interested in other parts of the city as well, so it provides the opportunity to engage on and provide input for [multiple] plans," McCollum said. "The survey is at a high level [where] input from that will feed into all the plans."
Another plan the city hopes to create is a corridor study focused on FM 1626, which is also a very focused plan similar to the downtown plan.
There are various vacant parcels of land along the FM 1626 corridor, and there are utility needs in the area that the plan will address.
The plans will take around 12-18 months to complete, and the city is asking for input from residents and community members through a survey.
For more information, visit www.ourbuda.com.
