By DAVID TELLER
Staff Reporter
The city of Cheney is preparing a request for proposals to obtain a consultant to help with rewriting the comprehensive plan, which has been on hold since May due to the Community Development Department's a heavy summer work load.
Community development director Brian Jennings said the rewrite has been put on hold to evaluate how the department will accomplish the project. Completing the rewrite became more out of reach since the onset of the busy construction season.
“Realistically, we don't have the resources in house to complete a project like this, especially a project that really needs to be a vision document of the city, not just a compliance of state law document,” Jennings said.
He said a consultant could expedite the project, and in the process would include as much public input as possible. Public input is not only a big factor, Jennings said it is the cornerstone by which the plan is written.
The rewrite has been a goal of the city for more than a year. Jennings said Cheney has not benefited from a vision plan for over decade. He said the city has been using the comprehensive plan as a compliance guide to meet minimum requirements of the state and Growth Management act (GMA). The rewrite would be a plan through public procedure to identify how the community wants to grow and what kind of community the public wants to become. He said the public procedure would get public input on the direction growth should take, what kind of growth there should be and identify where certain population densities should be.
“There is a whole list of issues I think the people of Cheney are concerned about and this is an opportunity (for the city) to get input on those (issues),” Jennings said.
City planner Elisa Rodriguez began compiling public input on the vision phase of the rewrite, but has not been able to proceed with it any further since May. Jennings said the consultant would meet with the public and continue gathering input on vision ideas, eventually working toward the rewrite.
The guidelines the Community Development Department uses builds one on top of the other. Once the rewrite is complete, Jennings said the next project for the department is updating the zoning code. But in order for that to happen, there must be a working comprehensive plan in place.
The request for proposals will be released by the end of September. The cost the city will incur is unknown. Jennings said the department would see what conditions consultants come back with to determine if it's doable. He said there are no limits on spending yet, though he believes there will be once the proposal is drafted.
If the fees are in excess of what the city is willing to pay, he said the department would regroup and try to figure out how to accomplish the rewrite. He speculates dividing the project up into portions, but stresses that is only conjecture.
Originally, Rodriguez said she wanted to get the rewrite complete by November. Jennings said that deadline is no longer possible.
The hardest part of completing the rewrite is what Jennings said is also the most important part, which is ensuring the city is hearing what residents say they want.
“For it to be a good plan, we need as much public input as possible,” Jennings said.
David Teller can be reached at [email protected]
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