Date: May 18, 2017
To: Members of the Planning Commission
From: Scott Tempel, City Planner
Title
Update on Comprehensive Plan
Body
Action Requested:
No formal action is requested from the Planning Commission.
Summary Report:
The Comprehensive Plan for Northfield was adopted in 2008. Generally, comprehensive plans are updated every ten years. This is mandatory for communities within the 7-county metro area. Northfield is outside of the Metropolitan Service Area and is not subject to the ten-year update requirement, despite having a portion of the community within Dakota County.
Even so, the Comprehensive Plan is an essential guiding document for the community and should be kept fresh and relevant. Staff is recommending that the Planning Commission begin reviewing the Comprehensive Plan during the summer of 2017 to determine what updates are needed. It is not anticipated that an entire rewrite of the current plan is warranted.
In addition to review by the Planning Commission, individual chapters could be sent to the city department, board, or commission associated with the topic area for comment. The intent would be to identify old data and assumptions, track progress on strategies, and assess how much work would be needed to update the chapter. Some chapters may need very little change while others, such as Chapter 4 (Land Use), Chapter 5 (Environmental Resources), Chapter 7 (Transportation), and Chapter 8 (Parks & Recreation) may require hiring technical assistance to complete.
Preliminary work related to demographics is already underway. Our community development intern, Matthew Dobratz, has updated Chapter 2 - Demographic Composition with new data which is included in the packet for your review. Matthew is also working on demographic and current condition updates to portions of the Housing and Land Use chapters. In addition, the Community Development Department has another student group from the U of MN Humphrey Institute analyzing housing ...
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