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Officials push for more public involvement in comprehensive plan
"We want this to be a product of the citizens of Nevada, not the city hall," Ron Clow, Nevada planning director, said during the final meeting of the comprehensive plan steering committee Wednesday.
"We want the people to feel their opinion will have an effect on the plan," Clow said.
He told the committee members that in the future the planning commission will serve as the steering committee for the update of the city's comprehensive plan; however, everyone who has worked on the update will be welcome to participate.
The city has hired Shafer, Klein & Warren Inc., Lenexa, Kan., to do the actual work of putting the update plan together and the city expects it to take between nine months and a year to complete the process.
Clow said the city had three firms respond to the request for qualifications for the project and after interviewing all three, they felt that Shafer, Klein & Warren would be the best choice.
"They were the most familiar with working with towns of 10,000 or less," he said.
In response to questions that have been raised about why the city should spend $76,500 to update the existing plan during a recession, Clow said that is the best time to update a comprehensive plan.
"You want to be ready when the economy picks up," he said.
The biggest complaint Clow said the city has heard about the current comprehensive plan is the it just sat on the shelf and gathered dust.
"We expect this to be a working document, but it will only be that if everyone is involved," he said.
Clow said that the city recently finished filling out a survey from Shafer, Klein & Warren to provide them with basic information about the population, community and existing facilities.
He said that the city has not heard back from them yet as to when they would start having public meeting to gather input from the residents.
When they start having public meeting the city wants input from all parts of the community.
"It has to be a community plan," Carol Branham, who had chaired the community facilities committee last year when the city was going to update the plan in-house.
"Good, bad, indifferent -- everyone's opinion is valuable. Then everyone comes to the table and we get solutions," she said.
"We want to hear negative opinions," Clow said.
In fact, Clow said that he welcomes healthy debate over the plan.
While Clow wants everyone to feel comfortable about expressing their opinions about what should be in the plan, he and the planning commission realize that it has been difficult to get a cross-section of the population to participate in past meetings.
"You may have to take the program to them, rather than make them come to you," Blake Hertzberg, planning commission chairman, said.
He suggested that they might have meetings at Chapman Estates, or the renovated community center, or other locations that will be convenient for various segments of the population to attend a meeting.
"One goal of updating the comprehensive plan will be growth and we want to include people from outside the city who are interested," Clow said.
"The key to success for Nevada is Highway 71," Clow said.
He said that the city is interested in building an access road along the west side to U.S. Highway 71 from Austin Boulevard to Champion Diamonds. They would like to eventually go farther south to the golf course, but there is a railroad track they would have cross in order to do so.
Building that road will open that area up for retail, he told the committee.
"That in my mind is a way to generate success," he said.
And when the new lighting is installed at the U.S. Highway 71 and Austin Boulevard intersection, Branham said the area will become more appealing to travelers.
All of these additions will add to the success that Wal-Mart and the new strip mall that has been filling up recently has had, Clow said.
"Those businesses have exceeded their corporations projections by far," Clow said.