Edmond planners outline comprehensive plan update, highlight housing need, mobility and urban forestry actions

City of Edmond planning staff on May 6 presented a proposed update to the city’s comprehensive plan — the Edmond Plan — highlighting new material on housing, mobility and urban forestry and laying out a schedule for further review and public hearings.

Hannah Nolan, senior long‑range planner for the City of Edmond, told the Planning Commission the update consolidates recent technical studies and adds new actions and goals in three principal areas: housing, mobility and the urban forest. Nolan said the update does not change the plan’s land‑use map or plan categories; it instead adds chapters and implementation actions drawn from completed studies.

Nolan reviewed recent studies incorporated into the update: the Edmond housing assessment (accepted August 2023), the EdmondShift long‑range mobility plan (approved October 2022) and a 2023 forest composition and ecosystem analysis. She said the housing assessment estimates Edmond needs nearly 9,000 new housing units over the next decade to meet demand and found that about 75% of Edmond’s workforce currently lives outside city limits and commutes into the city daily.

The draft update adds a new housing chapter (seven actions and recommendations, five of them new) that focuses on reducing barriers to a wider range of housing types, facilitating rehabilitation of older housing, supporting workforce housing and improving program management. The mobility chapter incorporates EdmondShift’s priorities and expands mobility actions from a handful in the prior plan to 18 recommended actions, Nolan said, with emphasis on safety, multimodal connectivity and updating engineering standards. The urban forestry recommendations incorporate the 2023 analysis: staff proposed a new urban‑forest goal and six forestry actions, including updates to development codes to protect ecologically sensitive areas, a public‑tree inventory, and an urban forest master plan.

Nolan said staff updated the implementation chapter to consolidate all actions and to add progress‑tracking notes; completed items are retained in a completed‑actions section so the city can document accomplishments. She said she will return to the Planning Commission on June 3 with a draft reflecting feedback from committees and commissions, followed by a council workshop in June and a City Council decision in July.

During the public comment period after the presentation, several residents raised questions about public input and specific rezoning proposals. One resident asked whether EdmondShift and related studies included public comment; Nolan and staff said the presentation was introductory and that a public hearing is scheduled for June 3, at which time staff and commissioners will discuss public input and the draft. Another resident, Jessie, said a five‑acre parcel near her home on Santa Fe is proposed for commercial development and asked the commission to consider protecting trees and open space; Catherine Simpson said she has questions about a rezoning in the Arbor Creek area and asked how to learn who filed the rezoning request. Planning staff directed residents to follow up with the planning department for details and gave planning department contact information for further inquiries.