Green River planners set chapter-by-chapter review of 2014 general plan, to seek June budget

The Green River City Planning Commission on Feb. 17 opened a multi-month review of the city's 2014 general plan and directed staff to bring the first chapters back next month as the commission considers requesting budget authority in June to fund a formal update.

The staff member leading the discussion said the plan was created in 2013 and adopted in 2014 and is typically reviewed every five to 10 years. "A lot of the transportation plans, the housing plans, all of those still... are the same direction we want to go," the staff member said, while acknowledging some statistics and growth projections are out of date.

Commissioners and staff agreed on a paced approach: review two to three chapters per month, workshop the first three chapters at the next meeting and, if the commission approves, ask the city council for funds in June to hire planning resources to rewrite or update chapters as needed. The Chair also asked staff to include three missing addendums (public-participation survey results, the housing plan and the transportation plan) when the plan materials are next distributed.

Staff said using a chapter-by-chapter schedule would give the commission several months to identify which parts of the plan need updates and to prepare for public workshops and eventual council briefings. No formal vote to authorize the budget request appears in the transcript; staff characterized the item as a standing discussion and said it will return as an action item once the commission has reviewed chapters and confirmed priorities.