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Greenville planners outline progress on Horizons 2026; recommend budget request to update plan
Summary
City planning staff updated City Council on the 2016 Horizons comprehensive plan, reported completed and in-progress action items, highlighted mixed-use zoning and Dickinson Avenue improvements, and said staff will request funding in the FY2026 budget to update the plan.
City planning staff on Feb. 13 provided a status update on Horizons 2026, Greenville’s comprehensive plan adopted in 2016, telling the council which items are complete, underway and expected to be part of a proposed FY2026 budget request to refresh the plan.
Shante Gubik, the city’s chief planner, told council the plan contains nine chapters and an action plan with 17 priority items. “Of those 17 items, I’ve broken them down into 2 separate categories. You have 7 items that are completed or near completion, and then you have 10 items where work has been commenced,” she said.
Gubik highlighted completed or near-completed items including the mixed-use zoning standards adopted in 2024, Dickinson Avenue streetscape and façade improvement projects, the GTAC center opened in 2018, and stormwater improvements in the Dickinson corridor. She described the mixed-use zoning as allowing vertical mixed-use in 13 districts and including design and architectural standards and flexible setbacks.
Items under way include mandatory design standards for Uptown, continued façade grant support, strategies to address student-oriented peripheral apartment overdevelopment (with two properties voluntarily converted to market-rate units), work to stabilize and revitalize the university area, and parks/open-space options in the Unified Development Ordinance (UDO). Gubik said the city is considering an option that would allow developers to pay into a city fund in lieu of providing on-site open space; that option would be voluntary unless council directs otherwise.
Other updates: the city plans to update watershed master plans for seven watersheds with FY2026 budgeted funds; a fiscal-impact analysis dashboard is being developed to inform annexation and CIP decisions; recruitment is underway for a sustainability coordinator; and the city is pursuing a proposed North–South connector that would repurpose an outer lane of North Green Street into a two-way protected corridor for pedestrians and bicyclists linking Towne Common to River Park North.
Council members praised recent work on Dickinson Avenue and asked process questions. Council member Blackburn thanked staff for mapping Horizons goals against the zoning code as part of the UDO work and asked about timing for the plan update; Gubik said the timing will depend on council direction and a forthcoming budget request. No formal council action was taken at the meeting.
