Cape to look at overall blueprint for growth

~ The plan will look at everything from future zoning to major street plans, annexation and historic preservation.

Cape Girardeau city officials plan to develop a new comprehensive plan to provide a road map for future development.

The city plans to hire a consulting firm next spring to help draw up the plan and will advertise for contract proposals in the hope of beginning the planning process itself by May or June.

Developing the plan could take a year, said Heather Brooks, assistant to the city manager.

Brooks said the planning process will include public input. "We want the public to buy into it," she said.

The new comprehensive plan would replace the existing plan approved by the planning and zoning commission and adopted by the city council in 1987.

The city in recent years has updated separate plans on streets, sewers and other infrastructure items. But city officials believe it is time to develop a new comprehensive plan.

The plan will look at everything from future zoning to major street plans, annexation and historic preservation. It will also focus on future public facility needs, officials said.

Skip Smallwood, chairman of the city's planning and zoning commission, said the comprehensive plan also will look at future land use. That can include parks development or even green-space requirements, he said.

"We really want this to be thorough," Smallwood said.

The city council and the planning and zoning commission first discussed the idea of updating the comprehensive plan last spring. A committee of three council members, three planning and zoning commissioners, and city staff was created to steer the planning process.

The committee has met three times over the past four months.

Brooks said the planning and zoning commission will receive an update on the committee's efforts at tonight's commission meeting.

Brooks said city officials don't have the time or manpower to develop the comprehensive plan without the help of a consulting firm.

"Unless we hire more staff, there is no way for us to do this in-house," she said.

A new comprehensive plan likely would chart a course of development for the city for the next 10 or 15 years, Brooks said.

State law gives city planning and zoning commissions the authority to approve comprehensive plans. But as was the case in 1987, the council is expected to sign off on the final document.

Brooks said the city council will be involved in every step of the planning process.

mbliss@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 123

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Cape Girardeau comprehensive planning process

* City will advertise for proposals from consulting firms.

* Firms will have until March 1 to submit proposals.

* The city council will hire a consulting firm.

* The planning process could begin in May or June.

* A new comprehensive plan could take a year to draw up.

* A comprehensive plan would address everything from future land use to streets and annexation.

* Final approval legally rests with the planning and zoning commission, but the city council likely would adopt it as was the case with the current plan adopted in 1987.

Source: City of Cape Girardeau