Know the Law, because that is the expession of the will of the People. Has any such plan ever been duly published, adopted and filed as a matter of public record in the County Probate Court. This is required by statute but it is a little known fact that since the "Master Plan", the official map is a fake it has never been adopted; therefore it is not on record as a matter of law. This is a very touchy subject I have found, especially in the Probate Court. Apparently Lawyers make a good living from all this confusion. As some wit has said, "If you're not part of the solution there's good money to be made in prolonging the problem".
Isn't that what the Regional Planning Commission is for? As a matter of coordination that is what an Architect is for; but it seems the Architect has been lost in the shuffle - the big boy politicians and other wheeler dealers have taken that prerogative to themselves by default.
Good question. I would say they might be one in the same - it depends on the size of the project. If it is a Master Plan for an entire City, a Comprehensive Plan would be for the entire County or Region, in as much as the City is a subdivision of the County or Region. I realize that in practice this is not so clearly defined.
Example:
These terms are often used synonymously. However, I think of a Comprehensive Plan as just the policy document that provides the basis for every aspect of the physical and economic development of the community, including the basis of the zoning and subdivision regulations. But I think of a Master Plan as a combined document that contains the Comp Plan, Zoning Ordinance and Subdivision Regulations and maybe even the sign code and any additional development guidelines that have been adopted. Some communities may also call this a Unified Development Ordinance (UDO). You may also see the term "master plan" applied to the development of large tracts of land (i.e. A Master Planned Community."
yes, I have all that - that's why it's so dang long!
They do have a right to attent the public hearings and give their two cents. They also need to realize they are probably outnumbered 9 to 1 by residents who want some level of property use restrictions and that the state government allows you the right to regulate it for the public good.
Where I live (Sweden) the comprehensive plan is strategic in nature and although "adopted" by Council is not legally binding. The detailed plan by contrast, is. Amongst other things, the comprehensive plans identify where detailed plans need to be provided or updated.
Facilitator. They should be the knowledgeable citizen component that fosters discussion between the general public and staff.
It occurred to me as I whistled through this thread again, that perhaps we need to look more specifically at the plan's stakeholders. There are lots of ways to classify them, according to their legitimacy, power and loudness, or their particular sector of interest. But getting a better understanding of their different types of interest in the plan may give ideas of how to reach them and target discussions with them. (Chambers of Commerce, Civic organisations, PTAs, faith groups, residential associations, and so on.)
seems to me that this is more of a land-use regulatory process question and what is possible depends on your state law. In theory, speculative bidding-up of land-values along a main street or downtown commercial strip can perhaps be discouraged by introducing the new upzoned entitlements as an overlay with a time-limit or sunset date on any additional and incremental (AoR) entitled capacity - to enjoy the incremental benefits of your proposed upzoning, landowners can be required to develop within a certain time window or before a certain sunset date. Failure to do and build to take advantage of that increment (in which case they hoard the land and leave it vacant or drastically under-developed beyond their entitled window) would cause AoR to revert to the previous entitlement or, alternatively, to trigger automatic CPC review on whether or not the upzoned increment still stands. This should serve to discourage at least some speculative behavior.
What Intergovernmental Agreements between your municipality and neighboring jurisdictions (i.e. the County) exist regarding planning. You may be required to hold joint meetings with city and county planning commissions and notify them of any planning activities outside of the town limits, but within your allowed planning area.[/QUOTE]
Of these 10 people - 2 were students, 2 were Commission members, 1 was runing for city council, and 1 reporter from the newspaper.
Great thread EG - I turned it into a sticky.
Here's a question/scenario that stumped me on a project I had about a year and a half ago:
Q. What do you do when you've exhausted all of your means and still cannot get any substantial public input for the community's plan?
We use the countys' comp plan along with the cities' comp plan for input into the transportation model. Conversely, we develop landuse forecasts with city and county planners so that we're all on the same page for planning purposes and to be consistent with all of the comp plans.
masterplanner.... i want to chat with you. Please send me an e-mail. Thanks, FL Planner.
We, too, have the same problem, but we also find that when we get too many people attending a public hearing, it becomes unruly and little gets accomplished other than eventually angry comments about other citizens.
