By DAVID TELLER
Staff Reporter
The Cheney City Council and the Cheney Planning Commission held a joint meeting on June 10 to delegate responsibilities and discuss laying the foundation for rewriting the comprehensive plan.
Rewriting the comp plan involves input not only from the two major bodies of city government, but also from a citizen advisory group and topic groups formed from outreach efforts of the Community Development Department and will consist of volunteer, non-elected city residents.
During the joint meeting, community development director Brian Jennings informed the City Council and the Planning Commission of their responsibilities for the comp plan rewrite, and also the responsibilities of the citizen advisory group and the topic groups.
Jennings said he would like to see influential stakeholders of the community like Eastern Washington University President Dr. Rodolfo Arévalo take an interest in the advisory group. The citizen advisory group would oversee the project by providing leadership and support for the topic groups. The advisory group would also facilitate a broad community exchange of ideas and help resolve conflicts between elements of the comp plan.
The topic groups would be divided into seven parts, each one overseeing only one topic of the comp plan. Jennings said the topic groups work with the Planning Commission to identify and clarify issues and concept development. He said they would also establish goals, objectives and policies of the comp plan.
The Planning Commission is co-responsible for creating the plan. He added that they are an ambassador for the comp plan and make recommendations to the City Council.
Ultimately, the City Council has the final say in the plan and is also the approving authority in adopting it.
The purpose of the comp plan is to identify how the community wants to grow and what kind of community the public wants the city to become. Jennings also said a current comp plan strengthens the city's tax base and protects and stabilizes neighborhoods to retain Cheney's quality of life. The plan would also provide predictability to both residents and the business market.
The city hired a number of consultants to help with the rewrite. Studio Cascade president Bill Grimes said the city is not interested in writing a compliance plan. It already has one. He said the comp plan is a pragmatic and adaptable version of what the city wants. That is why the community outreach is crucial. He estimates about 70 to 80 people would be needed for the citizen participation.
Grimes said planning is an esoteric process. Only certain kinds of people participate in it.
“You will not get a Woodward Field of people interested in it,” he said adding that the city has been planned to death and he does not want to revisit the old format.
Grimes said where the city is now in the process of gathering data and analyzing the existing conditions, developing capacity demands and analyzing alternate growth scenarios to define the city's growth vision.
Also during the meeting, Grimes had all of the City Council and Planning Commission members collect ideas on what problems they think should be addressed in the comp plan. Most of them mentioned the occupancy challenges, the proposed Betz Park and the light industrial and research park.
David Teller can be reached at [email protected]
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