The Comprehensive Plan is also known as the Master Plan for the community. This is the guiding document that identifies who we are now, who we want to be in the future, and a roadmap for how to get there. The plan should be revisited annually by staff and the Council to remind them of the long-term goals of the community. We should refer to it when we plan our projects for coming years and when we allocate funds in the budget.
Cover of the Nov 22nd draft Comprehensive Plan
Prior to this most recent action the City’s Planning Commission has been working diligently on updating the Salida Comprehensive Plan. The current plan was adopted in 2000 and has not been revisited since its adoption. Based upon community discussions the Planning Commission has created a vision for the City and a draft plan. Staff helped by working on drafts of each chapter which were subsequently reviewed by Planning Commission and the public.
All meetings of the Planning Commission are open to the public and input on the plan is welcome. In addition, there were a number of public meetings throughout the spring and summer of 2010 as we drafted the Plan. The first such meeting was held on January 12th and was attended by approximately 80 members of the community. The second public workshop was held Thursday, March 4th. Chapters addressed at that workshop include: Economic Sustainability, Recreation and Housing. The most recent workshop was on October 14th where priorities for the plan were reviewed.
If you have comments on the draft chapters or would like to receive periodic updates about this project and email notices of upcoming meetings, contact the Community Development Director, Dara MacDonald.
Draft Chapters
The plan can be downloaded and reviewed from the right sidebar of this page. Included are drafts of the complete plan and drafts of each chapter that have been created for the Comprehensive Plan. These were updated following the November 22nd Planning Commission hearing. Please feel free to review the drafts and offer comments to staff or the City Council. Each chapter is organized with a discussion of the chapter topic followed by Principles, Polices and Action Items. The Principles can be thought of as goal statements related to each chapter topic. The policies are statements of direction the City should take regarding the principles. Action items are specific steps that should be pursued to implement the principles and policies.
The final chapter, Chapter 11, is an implementation plan that prioritizes the action items and sets out goals for the implementation timeline. The action items selected for inclusion in this chapter were selected based upon the two recent community surveys, comments at the public meetings and feedback from the Planning Commission. The City Council will continue to refine this chapter as they consider adoption of the plan. Following adoption of the Comprehensive Plan, the implementation chapter should be revisited annually by the City Council to remove items that have been accomplished and revisit priorities for the coming year.
