Give us your General Plan comments

What happened with the General Plan? The Council and Planning Commission thought they had a plan that reflected what most of the citizens wanted but 57% of the voters turned it down.

We need to find out what the negatives were and redo the plan. I am asking our residents to tell us here what they liked about the plan if they voted yes and what they disliked about the plan if they voted no. That will help us make a new start.

First, however, let me summarize the major points in the present plan.
1. Existing zoning is not changed anywhere in the plan. Future growth is what the plan is about.
2. Residential areas are projected to grow with low density, large lots.
3. Commercial land is kept as-is. There are presently about 175 acres zoned commercial with enough vacant to hold over one hundred future stores including a dozen that could be supermarket size.
4. Industrial land is also kept as-is. There are over 500 acres, mostly the Mine and Smelter area presently under EPA study. There is enough vacant land for fifty or more companies to locate here in the future.
5. Future requests for zone changes must be reviewed by the Planning and Zoning Commission and approved by the Council before they can be effective. If zone change requests involve residential land over 60 acres or any rezoning from Residential to Commercial or Industrial, then a number of additional limitations are contained in the plan.
6. The Road System in the plan is projected to add better access to the whole area West of Highway 69 and to complete the missing links in the system on the East side.

So, tell us what you want to keep and what features of the plan should change. We will be using this blog and other methods to gather citizen input to help us create a better plan over the next few months and then send it back to the voters in the fall of 2009.