Star-Journbal Editor
OK, here's The Plan:
Between 2006 and 2025, Hillsboro will become a community with beautiful neighborhoods, a vibrant downtown, and thriving businesses in the industrial park.
Citizens will be protected by well-staffed police and fire departments, and there'll be plenty of water pressure for the fire hydrants as well as kitchen sinks.
Residents will enjoy smooth streets, sidewalks, and bike paths, and there'll be a playground in every neighborhood.
If all goes according to plan there'll even be a skateboard park in town.
Are these election-year promises?
Or, pie-in-the-sky predictions?
No. They're all part of The Plan. As in the Comprehensive Community Plan, which soon will be the new law governing the future growth and development of the City of Hillsboro.
In the same week the city council met to approve a budget plan for next year, the city's Community Planning and Development Commission met to plan 20 years into the future.
Meeting for the first time since Jan. 27, the commission last Thursday met to review its progress on an "Action Plan," which focuses on the future of community growth and development, housing, commercial expansion, industrial growth, and transportation.
The commission heard an update from consultant John Riggs, of Riggs Associates, Lindsborg, who called the Action Plan "pivotal" to the future of the city.
Handing out copies of the most recent draft, Riggs said, "For those who say the plan is a great big amorphous document that doesn't really have much specific, you'll find that the exact opposite is true.
"Your plan has a lot to say about things that should be done based on the goals and objectives of the community."
Riggs added that the commission its elf played a linchpin role in the city, because no other group was authorized by law to create and then oversee the implementation of the plan after it has been legally adopted.
"To get right to the bottom line," Riggs said, "unless this group has adopted a comprehensive plan, it's illegal for the government body to give final approval for a major project of the type covered by that plan until submitted to this group."
The Action Plan is one part of the overall Comprehensive Community Plan, which Riggs described as "an enormously complicated" document.
The four components are:
1). Identification of priority issues and preparation of an Action Plan.
2). Regulation of development and use of property. (Zoning regulations).
3). Provision of public services, utilities, and other improvements.
4). Public education and planning in the planning process.
The commission is in the process of reviewing the final draft of the Action Plan, Riggs said. Zoning issues related to the Action Plan will follow, he added.
The Action Plan was developed after a yearlong collaborative process involving the commission, city council, city department heads, local representatives from business, industry, and education, as well as the general public.
When the entire project is completed, it will replace a similar document that has been guiding the city for the past decade.
After the new plan is adopted, the city council would be required by state law to submit plans for projects such as utilities, streets and playgrounds to the commission for prior approval, Riggs said.. The commission's role would be to make sure the requests match the plan.
Any comprehensive plan needs to be updated periodically, Garrett said, because even the best-laid plans can fail to materialize.
"The important thing is the idea that we've pre-thought or pre-considered what our answers would be on a given subject," Garrett said.
Garrett cited the commission's role in an ordinance passed last year prohibiting "adult entertainment" in Hillsboro as an example of a pre-considered action.
Not having a comprehensive plan can wreak havoc on a city, he added.
"You hear these horror stories about cities where the zoning board is scrambling around trying to zone this particular thing out because they didn't quite do it right in the first place," Garrett said.
"Not only do you have egg on your face, but what you were trying to keep from happening happens.
"We want to avoid that as much as possible."
That the commission has been unable to muster a quorum for the past six months hasn't kept the city from moving forward with its plans, Riggs said, because the city isn't bound by law to follow it until it is adopted. Canceled meetings have delayed implementation of the plan by about 60 days, he added.
Although Riggs said he has been leaving the last Thursday evening of the month open since January, in case a meeting was called, not having meetings hasn't slowed his progress because he has been working on other facets of the overall plan.
Riggs described the lack of recent meetings "unusual" in his experience working with the commission over the past two years.
"This is a good working group, we've gotten a lot done," Riggs said.
The state law is specific in its requirement that commissions have 12 members and that seven must be present to hold a meeting.
According to Garrett, the law makes it harder to conduct meetings.
"It's been my experience that the larger the group the harder it becomes to get a quorum," he said. "If we doubled their pay, maybe they'd show up."
Garrett, who was only joking about paying the volunteers, said he was happy the commission had met because its work is important.
One member who has been ready to go back to planning the future is former Hillsboro City Council member Ray Franz. He's had no trouble making himself available for meetings because, he said, he's retired.
The former sausage-maker and council member is well-suited for committee work; which has been described as the sausage-making of government.
"My friends say, 'How can you stand it?'" Franz said, with a grin.
"I'm on church council, too!"
