Communities express their vision

Council Chair

Peter Bell

Once a decade, city councils throughout the seven-county metropolitan area have a very important job – to adopt or update their local comprehensive plan.

This is their vision of how they want their city to grow – of how it will develop or redevelop, ensure adequate housing, provide essential public services, protect natural areas and meet other community objectives.

Most communities in our region are now engaged in this process. Their new or updated plans must be submitted to the Metropolitan Council for review by Dec. 31, 2008. Under state law, these plans must be consistent with the Council’s 2030 Regional Development Framework and our plans for expanding four regional systems – transportation, aviation, water resources, and regional parks and open space.

However, within this Regional Framework, local officials decide how they want their community to develop and how specific tracts of land will be used.

To assist local officials, the Met Council has provided several new tools:

An interactive Local Planning Handbook to provide information and tools to assist in the preparation of their comp plans.
A two-CD Natural Resources Digital Atlas to assist in identifying and protecting regionally significant natural resources as part of their planning efforts.
A series of planning workshops attended by some 500 local officials, staff and planning consultants who wanted to learn more about issues that must be addressed in their comp plans.

The Council also has experienced planners, called “sector representatives,” who are assigned to different geographic areas of the region and stand ready to respond to technical questions that arise during the comprehensive planning process.

We are blessed to live in a growing and prosperous region. By 2030, we project that the population of the seven-county metropolitan area will grow to 3.6 million, an increase of nearly 1 million from 2000.

This growth unquestionably will present challenges. However, the comprehensive planning process provides us with the tools we need to accommodate that growth, provide needed infrastructure in a cost-effective manner, protect vital natural areas and preserve our prized quality of life.

Peter Bell

April 2007