For neighborhoods interested in participating in the City of Asheville’s upcoming Comprehensive Plan update we’re pleased to announce that there’s plenty of time. The contract for a consultant to guide the City through the process has not yet been awarded so neighborhoods have not missed out on any opportunities to participate in the process.
Besides informational meetings and opportunities for public input once the Comp Plan process begins, neighborhoods can get started with the City’s Plan on a Page exercise.
Plan on a Page is a tool designed to help neighborhood groups organize themselves in order to build community and develop consensus around neighborhood priorities. Plan on a Page is also a way for neighborhoods to prepare for involvement in the revisions of the Comprehensive Plan, especially for those communities that have not yet developed a complete neighborhood plan. It’s a worksheet with fields such as neighborhood description, neighborhood strengths, neighborhood challenges, vision and so on. You can access the Plan on a Page document here.
Once neighborhoods have completed their Plan on a Page, please submit the document to Neighborhood Services Coordinator Marsha Stickford at mstickford@ashevillenc.gov.
Meet with a City planner
To help neighborhoods with the Plan on a Page process, City planners will make themselves available to meet with neighborhood groups to look over their draft plans or help them get started. This will be a drop-in session from 5 to 8 p.m. April 19 at the Dr. Wesley Grant, Sr. Southside Center, 285 Livingston Street.
“By offering an opportunity for a face-to-face discussion with a City planner, neighborhood leaders can get a better idea of how the Plan on a Page process works,” said Stickford.
About the Comprehensive Plan
The comprehensive plan is a community’s official document establishing policies for its long-range development. From the Asheville City Plan 1925, prepared by the famed City Planner John Nolen, to the Asheville City Development Plan 2025, completed in 2003, the City has a history of effective and implementable comprehensive plans.
More than a decade has passed since the adoption of the most recent comprehensive plan. Now the City is dealing with demographic changes and population growth, among other new challenges that will affect the future development pattern and overall sustainability goals, so the time is ripe to update the City’s long range planning document.
For more information about how neighborhood and City planning intersect visit the City’s Neighborhood Plans webpage. There you will find a presentation by Planning and Urban Design Director Todd Okolichany titled “Moving Forward Together,” among other resources, including the Plan on a Page worksheet.
Find out more about the upcoming Comprehensive Plan process on the Comp Plan project page.
For more information, contact Neighborhood Services Coordinator Marsha Stickford at 828- 259-5506 or mstickford@ashevillenc.gov.