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Local comprehensive plan updates

Communities, Council make progress on plan completion and review

Seventy-six local comprehensive plan updates have been given the Metropolitan Council’s thumbs up or are ready to be acted on at an upcoming Council meeting. Eighty-two updates are in some stage of the staff review process. And, of the 31 plan updates outstanding, most have requested and been granted extensions on updates that were due at the end of 2008.

Council planners say while much work remains to be done, communities and the review process are ahead of the 1998 comprehensive plan update process. The feeling is, it’s a better outcome for everyone.

“The plan updates are, in many ways, more complicated and cover more topics than 10 years ago when comp plans were last due to the Council,” said Phyllis Hanson, the Council’s manager of Local Planning Assistance. “This time we needed more detailed information on inflow and infiltration, for example, water supply and land use,” she said.

Electronic submittal aids review process

Nonetheless, Hanson said Council staff are making better progress this planning cycle due to a number of factors, including electronic submittals.

“Some of these updates are very large, so it’s enormously helpful to work on them and share them electronically among the technical reviewers,” said Hanson.

Burnsville’s plan update is more than 1,600 pages. Bloomington’s is nearly that.  The City of Lakeville filed an update of more than 1,200 pages.

“We were also better prepared this time,” said Hanson. “There were “On Course” sessions with local officials about the update process. We also had several online features to assist local planners, such as the Local Planning Handbook, which had more and better information about what was needed and expected as part of the local plan updates.

“Sector representatives were also actively engaged in the process, responding to communities that request advice and assistance,” she said.

State law sets planning requirements

Requirements for plan updates and local planning are established in a state law known as the Metropolitan Land Planning Act, as is the requirement that the Metro Council review local plans for conformance and consistency with regional plans.

Under the Act, cities, towns and county boards in the seven-county metro area must have plans in place that are updated every 10 years. Those plans represent a community vision of how communities will grow and develop. They need to convey, for example, how growth will be served with essential public infrastructure and services, and how housing and natural resources goals will be met.

Local plans must also conform to the Council’s systems plans in the areas of transportation, aviation, water resources and regional parks.

For example, Scott County needed to plan for more sewer capacity, because its population is expected to more than double between 2000 and 2030 – from 89,498 to 215,370. Working with the Metro Council, local officials helped to identify a couple potential sites for a new wastewater treatment plant to be built after 2030 to serve the county’s long-term growth needs; the sites were incorporated into the county’s long-term plan.

“Investments in these regional systems will be needed to adequately preserve public health, safety, mobility and recreation for current and future residents of Scott County,” said Mike Sobota, Scott County Community Development Director.

“So successful was our joint planning, that Scott County looks forward to building on our partnership with the Metropolitan Council to address regional issues of mutual concern,” said Sobota.

Small, growing communities face particular challenges

“Some communities face some pretty difficult challenges, politically and fiscally, as they go through the planning process,” said Hanson. “Particularly smaller communities that have room to grow, job growth, and the demographics to grow, in other words, families having children.”

“They often want to preserve things the way they are,” she said. “Sometimes, where that makes sense, we can help communities achieve that. Other times, our message to them is to shape growth into communities of their choosing, rather than simply live with the consequences if they don’t.”

Hanson expects the majority of the plans to be reviewed by the Council by the end of the year.  During the last half of 2009, Council staff plan to identify trends about what’s occurring in the region’s planning areas in terms of density of development, infill and redevelopment, and preservation of natural areas of the region.