2018-032 Attachment-Comprehensive Plan Update

Home Browse Search

SECTION 3: KEYS FOR CREATING AN IMPLEMENTABLE COMPREHENSIVE PLAN No plan of any kind has any real value unless it is implemented. The following recommendations have been proven to aid the implementation of comprehensive plans: 1. City planning is part of a continuing/on-going process. 2. Implementation, not the preparation of a comprehensive plan, must be the target/goal. 3. Make the public aware of the plan preparation, and provide for public input into the process as early as possible, and/or at strategic points in the comprehensive plan preparation and adoption process. 4. After appropriate public hearings, have the planning and zoning commission and the council adopt the plan, consistently use it, and refer to it as appropriate. 5. Recognize that short-term planning decisions (e.g., re -zonings, specific use permits, site plans, plats) directly affect long-term planning decisions (e.g., future land use plan recommendations 5-20+ years into the future), and vice -versa. 6. Maintain a professionally trained and a preferably certified city planner on the city staff. 7. As soon as possible after the Paris (updated) Comprehensive Plan is adopted by the City Council, begin the process to make the Zoning District Map in conformance with the Future Land Use Plan Map. This is sound city planning, and begins to implement the plan as soon as possible, and the Texas Local Government Code states that zoning should be in conformance with the Comprehensive Plan. 8. Elected and appointed officials must recognize that a functioning comprehensive plan program is a long-term commitment, and therefore transcends typical two or four year+ terms of said officials. Therefore, the Comprehensive Plan must not become a "political football" with various political factors fighting against it. However, there are appropriate, non -confrontational methodologies to modify or amend a comprehensive plan. 10