(8/24) At the July Planning Commission meeting, members discussed the draft of the first chapter, the introduction, to the 2025 Comprehensive Plan. The plan is designed to set forth the Town’s policies in the areas of land use and community development, natural resources, transportation, utilities, recreation, and housing. The plan is reviewed and updated every ten years and will guide the Town through the year 2045.
The first section of the first chapter talks about the purpose of the entire plan and establishes clear goals and visions for Emmitsburg’s thriving future.
Section two organizes the plan into ten chapters with multiple sections and meets the requirements made by the State of Maryland. In this chapter there will be maps and illustrations providing the basis for the regulations that are needed for land use, community development, natural resources, transportation, utilities, recreation and housing.
The third section is the location and community section giving an overview of the town setting in terms of geography, population and how the town's location creates opportunities for people to live, work and play in.
The fourth section provides legislative content and mentions the 12 visions for planning by MDP which are: quality of life and sustainability, housing, public participation, economic development, growth areas, environmental protection, community design, resource conservation, infrastructure, stewardship, transportation, and implementation.
There are five basic questions that the plan must also answer: 1 - Where is the town now? This question requires an inventory of the town's current assets, opportunities and challenges? 2 - Where the town is going, including a series of future scenarios based on the inventory obtained through the first question? 3 - Where does the town want to be, which is where the public's input will be really important. 4 - How will the town get there? (which is essentially what the comprehensive plan will be outlining), and 5 - Is the town making progress on its prior goals?
Diane Walbreaker was involved in the 1990s Comprehensive Plan and offered her help in gathering groups of people from each representative area in town to meet once a month to discuss what they want to see achieved with the plan update. She also pointed out, "We can't wait until next summer to get the public involved—it has to start now."
Staff involved with the Comprehensive Plan update are working on ways to involve the public. This includes visioning exercises where participants are guided through a scenario ten or more years into the future to determine shared values and aspirations.
Council member Valerie Turnquist commented on how difficult it is to see the changes being made to the current 2015 plan, as the only way is a page-by-page comparison. She asked if it was possible to make it easier for the general public to follow the changes.
Chris Jakubiak explained that the plan will be updated, but "there will be new chapters to the document that won’t be in the current version, so it’s going to be a different document." Readers will need to review and appreciate the entire document to understand any changes he said.
Comments on the draft plan can also be submitted to the Town Planner, Najila Ahsan, 301-600-6309, NAhsan@emmitsburgmd.gov.
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