Gate City residents talk discuss the proposed comprehensive plan | Logan Ramsey, EastIdahoNews.com
POCATELLO — Gate City residents got to provide input on the long-term future of their community this week.
On Tuesday, residents filtered into Marshall Public Library to view a presentation about the Pocatello Comprehensive Plan 2040. The plan aims to show how the city will develop over the next 17 years. During the presentation, residents were able to look at the goals of the plan and provide feedback to its creators.
Jim Anglesey, the long-range planner and project manager of the plan, wanted attendees to know they can still provide feedback to the project group through March. The group can also still make changes to the plan before it goes before the city council.
Those who want to view the plan can go online here and read it in its entirety. Below the plan, there is a feedback form people can fill out if they wish to offer any.
According to Anglesey, it would be more accurate to look at the plan as a sort of resolution rather than a piece of legislation. Should the city council accept the plan, it will only act as a guiding document for how the city is developed in the future.
Before it goes into the city council agenda, the plan will first go before the Pocatello Planning and Zoning Commission. They’ll vote on whether or not to give it a ‘pass’ recommendation and then the city council will make the final decision.
Assuming the plan is passed by the council, Anglesey said the most immediate effects citizens will see in their lives would be changes to zoning within the city. Included in the plan is a map of future land use in the city that he said, “helps guide zoning throughout the city or zoning changes that we recommend.”
People who live in solidly residential areas of the city wouldn’t have to worry about being rezoned, but people who live in transition areas could see their property’s zoning change. If someone lives in a residential area that’s rezoned to a commercial area they would see their residence grandfathered into the previous zoning.
“What that does to these designations is provide opportunities. If they desire change in their use of their property, they have the ability to do that,” Anglesey said. “It’s not so much that we’re gonna go in and say ‘you have to change it’ but it gives them the opportunity to make changes.”
If residents are interested in learning what their current zoning is and comparing it to what the plan recommends, they can go to the Planning and Development Web Application and look up their address.
Councilwoman Linda Leeuwrik was at the open house talking to Pocatello residents. She said earlier in the evening Councilman Cory Mangum was in attendance. She also said that while Councilman Rick Cheatum was at the state capitol at the time, he had been in attendance at every open house leading up to that one.
Leeuwrik said it’s hard to get into specifics about what the council’s first priorities will be assuming they pass the plan because it’s a “big picture vision.” She did say the plan’s survey results show that outdoor recreation is the first priority for what people want to see preserved in the community.
“The focus is absolutely on recreation. Outdoor recreation is the thing that rises to the top every time,” Leeuwrik said. “I think that has to be a top priority.”
She also said she was appreciative of feedback from residents.
“I think we’ll use that general feedback in those trends to determine how we’re going to implement the plan,” Leeuwrik said. “We’re going to take that big picture vision and turn it into specific (actions).”
The post Pocatellans learn what’s in store for the city between now and 2040 appeared first on East Idaho News.
Source: eastidahonews.com
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