Newport News staff report progress on 1 City, Our Future 2040 comprehensive plan; third outreach round planned for fall

Brian Swetz, assistant director for comprehensive planning, told the Newport News City Council on July 22 that the update to the 1 City, Our Future 2040 comprehensive plan is underway and on schedule, with a third round of public outreach planned for September and October and a target to deliver the draft to the council before the end of the calendar year.

The presentation outlined what a comprehensive plan is, what the planning staff has completed so far and how the updated plan will be structured and presented. The plan is required by the Code of Virginia and must be updated at least every five years, Swetz said.

Swetz said the project has completed initiation, data collection and analysis, and planned updates phases, and staff are beginning the drafting phase. "It is designed to promote the planned and orderly development of land," Swetz said, describing the statutory purpose and the role of the planning commission and council in reviewing and adopting the plan. He said the department has completed two rounds of public outreach, performed a demographic analysis, and gathered input on priorities and satisfaction with city services.

According to Swetz, the highest-ranked areas of importance reported in outreach were economic development quality, traffic flow, maintenance of city infrastructure and preparing the city for the future. Staff showed examples of more visual, interactive plan pages that limit narrative and use maps, charts and linked resources to make the plan function more like a tool than an encyclopedia. He said the update will try to integrate department-level goals and status information into that format.

Councilman Long asked whether the comprehensive plan and the Strategic Housing Initiative Plan are being coordinated so the two efforts do not work at cross purposes. Swetz replied that he and staff member Terry have discussed coordination and that housing will be a major focus of the comprehensive plan; staff will work to capture items from the strategic housing plan within the comprehensive plan.

A council member also asked whether the Jefferson Avenue planning effort is part of the citywide comprehensive plan. Swetz said the Jefferson Avenue plan focuses only on Jefferson Avenue between Mercury and J. Clyde streets, while the comprehensive plan addresses the entire city; traffic and other issues will be treated in both documents but in different ways.

Swetz said staff will review the future land use map and implementation tactics during the upcoming public outreach and asked council members to provide feedback on the draft goals and focus-area map that were distributed to them. He described the fall outreach as the time when the city will show potential changes to the future land use map and discuss specific tactics the city could use to implement plan goals.

Less critical details: Swetz repeated that the timeline is aggressive and called the end-of-year target "fingers crossed," but said staff appears to be on track. He invited council members to send comments on the draft goals and strategies.

The presentation and Q&A consumed the bulk of the work session; there were no formal votes tied to the comprehensive plan at this meeting.