Planning commission forwards revised comprehensive plan after heated DEI and connected-streets debate

The Newcastle Planning Commission voted 4–3 on Feb. 26 to forward a revised draft of the city’s comprehensive plan and three supplemental exhibit packages to the City Council, after an extended public hearing and several competing motions on how extensively the commission should revise the draft before sending it on.

The commission’s decision sends the plan — including edits compiled as “Exhibits 8, 9 and 10” — to council with direction that staff apply the edits in Exhibit 10 first, then Exhibit 9, and notify the council of any portions that staff believe may conflict with state law. Commissioners later directed staff to prepare a single draft reflecting that approach for the March council packet.

The vote followed a divided public hearing in which speakers urged both retention and removal of language on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and voiced differing views on whether the commission should finalize more edits or move the item to the council for additional debate. Mary Vickers, who said she has been a Newcastle homeowner nine years, urged commissioners to “stay the course and not let political pressure derail a plan that was…