Bluff council seeks to streamline general plan, move details to appendices

Erin Nelson, Bluff's town manager, told the council the town's general plan is lengthy and sometimes reads more like a collection of ordinances than a high-level guide. "A lot of the historical data can probably get moved to the appendices," she said, adding that shifting detailed items out of the main document would make the plan more accessible without removing substance.

Nelson said she met with the Hansen Group, which advised reducing duplicative policy language, replacing prescriptive phrasing with verbs such as "encourage" or "emphasize," and reorganizing the plan into clear sections for current conditions, assumptions and goals. "Change resulting policies to something like strategic priorities or goals and priorities," she said, noting that keeping planning assumptions is important because the legal and factual context can change.

Councilmembers asked whether those edits would require another noticed public hearing. Anne Laffonen said moving historical materials to appendices likely would not trigger a new hearing, but a substantial rewrite would. The council discussed timing and confirmed staff will prepare a public-ready draft to support noticing for a December hearing window if required.

Nelson showed a layout example used by another municipality and recommended clearer visual elements — maps, charts and alt text — plus lettering or bullets instead of numbered lists to avoid implying priority ordering. Staff and council agreed to work with planning and zoning and to use in-house edits where possible, reserving consultants for formatting and ADA compliance tasks if necessary.

The council did not take a formal vote; next procedural steps are for staff to prepare the revised draft, confirm whether changes are “substantial” under state noticing rules, and schedule a public hearing if required.