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Peoria's general plan is nearing ballot box
200-page document to go before council Nov. 12
Posted
Timeline
Oct. 17: Peoria Planning and Zoning Commission recommended general plan to council
Nov. 12: Peoria City Council to consider general plan
Spring or fall 2020: General plan must be placed on the ballot and passed by voters
General plan themes
There are 24 elements/chapters of the Peoria general plan that fall under six themes.
Smart Growth: To guide future growth and development into a sustainable citywide development pattern, while maintain-ing or enhancing quality of life in communities. Growth should be at a desired scale and character that is consistent with the social, economic and aesthetic values of the city.
Economic Prosperity: To increase the wealth and quality of living for all with policies that supports a diverse, innovative, compet-itive, entrepreneurial, and sustainable economy. Peoria recognizes the economic health of the city influences the physical development and the overall health of the community, along with its capacity to fund essential services.
Healthy Neighborhoods: To protect and enhance the health, safety and general welfare of Peoria’s citizens, workers, and visitors by integrating health-promoting design and development practices at the building or project scale. Elevating the vitality of the people by promoting health and wellness in the built environment enhances both proper-ty and community values.
Arts, Culture and Recreational Enrichment: This chapter is intended to enhance the availability and accessibility of the arts for all residents, preserve important historic and cultural elements that make Peoria unique, activate the human spirit through social and physical connections, and provide educational opportunities for lifelong learning.
Public Services: To provide superior levels of public facilities and services in a responsible, reliable, safe, and compassion-ate manner. In order to sustain existing households and businesses and to accommodate future population and employment growth, public facilities and services will need to be strategically located, and regularly improved, expanded, and maintained.
Integrated Transportation: To holistically create a seamless network of mobility choices, through acknowledgment and dedication to continuing to foster and grow the on-street roadways, off-street shared use paths, transit options, and plan for advancing technologies. Transportation should be considered for all modes of travel and universally accessibility.
After multiple years of development and then public outreach, Peoria’s general plan is nearly complete.
The planning commission put its seal of approval on the nearly 200-page document and it is now scheduled to go before city council, Nov. 12, for approval -- putting it one step closer to placing it on the ballot for voter approval next year.
Peoria’s general plan is expected to serve as a road map for growth and development for more than 20 years into the future.
All municipalities are required to have a general plan per Arizona state law, which must be maintained and adopted by public vote every 10 years. The plan will be used to shape the future of the city by guiding growth and land development in accordance with the city’s goals.
Planning Commission Chairman Jeff Nelson said growth is coming to the city whether it is wanted or not.
“And I’ll be the first to confess -- sitting on Thunderbird Road coming home at five o’clock -- I’m not the biggest fan of growth,” he said.
“But I know it is coming, so you have to plan for it and you have to do it in a smart, thoughtful manner and I think this plan has done that.”
The general plan’s overall themes include wellness, fiscal responsibility, building on strategic relationships and resilient, adaptable forward thinking, as well as placemaking -- projects intended to activate areas of the city, giving them a sense of place.
Planning Manager Lorie Dever said staff has also refined land use by reducing the number of categories, opening and expanding the range of those categories and providing more specificity in the character within those categories.
“We’ve introduced community wellness within this plan. Placemaking has grown in prominence and is woven throughout the document. ...,” Ms. Dever said.
“We know we can’t do this alone. We continue to build on strategic relationships and we want to be more resilient, adaptable and forward thinking in the years to come because we are looking out 10 to 20 years and beyond.”
Most recent edits include fixing grammatical errors and typos, refining land use categories, and updating some maps.
A city-contracted consultant reviewed the Jomax Road alignment as part of Peoria’s capital improvement program and recommended an alignment that staff worked into the general plan at the last minute.
The map will be current in the document, incorporating the new Jomax Road alignment, east and west of Loop 303, Ms. Dever said.
“We have scrambled to reincorporate that recommended alignment within our circulation map, so it is a change because of setting additional topography in the area and lining up of additional projects on both sides of Loop 303,” she said.
Peoria’s last general plan update was approved in 2010. The new plan addresses a multitude of topics such as water resources, sustainability, housing, transportation and more. This includes some topics that were not in the last general plan.
It has been completely updated and is designed around six livability goals: economic prosperity, healthy neighborhoods, superior public services, smart growth, integrated transportation, as well as arts, culture and recreational enrichment.
The city hosted numerous open houses for public input during a 60-day public comment period, July 18-Sept. 16.
“I know a major plan update like this, particularly in a high growth area like Peoria, can be very, very controversial and the fact that we aren’t seeing any controversy at our public hearings is saying a lot about the staff outreach and the responsiveness to the stakeholders,” Commissioner Bryan Patterson said.
State law requires every Arizona city update its general plan every 10 years. For cities with a population more than 50,000, like Peoria, the state requires the general plan to cover a minimum of 17 general plan elements.
Planning Commissioner Jay Otlewski said this is the second general plan he has been a part of in Peoria.
“This makes the other one look like guys sitting around in a smoky room just making decisions,” he said. “(The city has) really taken the time, put it out there and made sure everybody knew what was coming. From my perspective this is an amazing plan.”
Philip Haldiman can be reached at 623-876-3697, phaldiman@newszap.com, or on Twitter @philiphaldiman.
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