Planning staff asks commission to prioritize general plan goals; offers policy edits and consultant support

Planning staff asked Lincoln's Planning Commission to prioritize policies in the city's General Plan and to provide focused feedback to help shape future code and project review.

Makayla Noble, associate planner, told commissioners staff and the commission completed a scoring exercise across the plan's elements and identified top items for further review. The exercise used an ordinal scoring method (staff explained the lower score indicated higher priority) and produced recommended priorities for the land-use, open-space, transportation and housing elements.

Why it matters: Commissioners and staff said prioritizing the General Plan's goals will help focus limited staff resources, inform future project reviews, and identify policies that may need stronger language so they are effectively implemented in approvals.

What staff presented

Noble and other staff summarized areas of agreement and difference between staff and commissioners. For the land-use element, both groups agreed on several top priorities, including orderly growth, general-plan implementation and commercial uses; staff ranked preservation of downtown higher, while commissioners emphasized residential land uses. For open space, both staff and the commission prioritized a general open-space designation and water-resource protection; commissioners rated recreational opportunities higher while staff placed relatively more weight on biological-resource protection. For transportation the top priorities were road maintenance, regional coordination and bike-and-trail systems. For housing both groups prioritized availability across income levels and evaluation of city housing programs; staff emphasized promoting equal housing opportunities and the commission emphasized conserving and improving existing housing stock.

Policy examples and suggested edits

Staff showed sample policy language and possible edits designed to turn aspirational language into measurable requirements. As an example staff contrasted the existing policy language'"the city shall encourage the use of alleys and side loaded garages to deemphasize garages on homes"'with a potential edit that would require alleys and side-loaded garages "for 10% of dwelling units for projects over 100 units." Staff said that approach would create an enforceable, measurable target while limiting development feasibility impacts.

Another example addressed the city's 40% open-space requirement for specific plans; staff suggested adding an accessibility component so that a given share of residences would be within a walkable distance (for example, a quarter mile) of open space. Staff warned that protecting natural features such as ravines or wetlands can itself consume a large share of required open space and that adding accessibility requirements could affect project developability.

Timeline, workload and consultant support

Commissioners said reviewing all 435 General Plan policies at once would be unmanageable. Staff recommended breaking the work into smaller batches tied to the commission's top goals and possibly assigning a subset of policies for a deeper language review. Noble said staff would provide the full list and a smaller, prioritized package (for example, the policies tied to the top five goals) and requested commissioners highlight their top policies.

Staff indicated the city has budgeted additional funds to hire a consultant to help with the effort, including pulling best-practice examples from peer cities and proposing draft language to achieve implementation goals.

Public comment and next steps

Members of the public who spoke during the hearing generally supported the idea of consolidating and clarifying policies to improve implementation. Commissioners asked staff to email the full ranking data and the prioritized policy packs and to include how many staff and commissioners participated in the scoring. Commissioners also asked staff to present revised policy packages and consultant scope once available.

Staff requested direction on whether the commission preferred staff to prepare a recommended edit package for the commission to review, or whether the commission wished to perform a deeper line-by-line edit itself. Several commissioners said they preferred staff prepare a recommended edit package (backed by the consultant) and bring recommendations to the commission for review.

Speakers quoted below are those recorded in the staff presentation and the commission discussion. All policy text quoted is from staff presentation slides and the staff report; edits shown were presented by staff as examples for discussion and not adopted as formal policy.