Planning process offers cities chance to shape their future

Council Chair

Peter Bell

If you follow the work of your city council, or tune in occasionally to cablecasts of its meetings, you soon may hear local officials talking about the need to update their “comp plan.”

That term is government shorthand for “local comprehensive plan,” a document all metro area communities must adopt or update every 10 years under state law. This plan is the vision of how each community wants to grow — of how it will develop or redevelop, provide essential public facilities, ensure adequate housing, protect natural areas and meet other objectives.

Under state law, the comprehensive planning process is triggered when the Metropolitan Council sends out “system statements” informing each community how it is affected by the Council’s policy plans for our regional systems: transportation, aviation, water resources (including wastewater collection and treatment), and regional parks and open space.

In September, we will be sending customized statements to every community that reflect the Met Council’s updated plans for our regional systems. Under state law, communities then will have three years to adopt local comprehensive plans that are consistent with our regional system plans and our 2030 Regional Development Framework, the document that binds them together.

Our regional plans are designed to assure the orderly, economical development of the seven-county metro area and the efficient use of our regional systems. These plans are organized around four policies:

Accommodating growth in a flexible, connected and efficient manner.
Slowing the growth in traffic congestion and improving mobility.
Encouraging expanded choices in housing locations and types.
Conserving, protecting and enhancing the region’s vital natural resources.

Our Regional Framework recognizes that “one size does not fit all” — that different communities have different opportunities, needs and aspirations. It includes tailored strategies for fully developed communities, communities that are still developing and four different types of rural areas.

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Our regional plans are designed to assure the orderly, economical development of the seven-county metro area and the efficient use of our regional systems.
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- Peter Bell

But our regional plans also reflect the belief that all communities have a shared responsibility to help accommodate the region’s growth in a sensible, cost-effective manner.

By the year 2030, our region is expected to grow to 3.6 million people, an increase of nearly 1 million from our 2000 population. It is essential that we make the most effective use of our enormously expensive highways, transit system, sewers, parks and other public investments.

That’s why one of our policies seeks to encourage 27 percent of the region’s growth in the central cities and developed suburbs — where roads, sewers and other costly infrastructure already are in place.

Our plans also call for maintaining a rolling, 20-year supply of sewered land to accommodate development in the outer-ring communities, where the bulk of the region’s growth will occur. Over the next 25 years, we anticipate investing $3.7 billion to maintain, replace and expand our wastewater collection and treatment facilities. We also plan to develop a network of bus and rail “transitways” as part of our effort to grow the transit system and ease traffic congestion.

As communities update their comprehensive plans, it’s a good time to engage their residents in a discussion of where their community is at, where they want to be and what they need to do to achieve their goals.

It’s also an opportunity to look around to see what they can learn from others. Communities throughout the region are testing new ideas for developing town centers, encouraging mixed-use development that can support transit, reclaiming polluted lands, revitalizing aging strip malls, expanding housing choices and integrating natural-resource protection into their land-use planning decisions.

One important feature of the comprehensive planning process is that it requires communities to talk with their neighbors. Before submitting their plans to the Met Council, communities must share their plans with neighboring jurisdictions to assure that their plans are compatible with one another.

As the chair of the region’s planning body, I have regular contact with many gifted planners. But just as “war is too important to be left to the generals,” planning is too important to be left to the planners. The comprehensive planning process offers the opportunity for local elected officials and concerned citizens to help shape the future of their community and the region as a whole.

Peter Bell

September 2005