Comprehensive plan for Florence unveiled

FLORENCE -- After seven months of public meetings and a year of drafting, officials unveiled the city's comprehensive plan Monday at the city hall auditorium.

"This is the citizens' plan; this is what they said they wanted for Florence," said city planning director Melissa Bailey of the plan that provides direction for the city's development for the next 15 to 20 years.

The plan provides a framework that includes urban green spaces, better connected transportation and integrated neighborhoods where residents can live, shop and play.

"Already with the zoning ordinance changes, the vision is starting," said consultant Darrell Meyer, who worked with the city, and also mentioned the recent zoning of the Sweetwater Arts and Entertainment District.

Resident Jean Mammen, who attended the meeting, said, "The only way they'll be able to implement the plan is to get the town involved."

The city last overhauled its comprehensive plan in 1996.

One of the biggest demands that came from residents was green space. "If that gets out of kilter, you're in bad shape," Meyer said.

The long-term vision includes a greenway around the city that would connect city parks along a transportation route for biking, walking and driving.

Bailey said another important focus was Florence's transportation system. In a city the size of Florence, "nothing is worse than congestion," she said.

One of the main priorities for transportation improvements is to bolster the city's gateways. A planned College Street bridge would connect west Florence; completion of the Patton Island bridge approach would provide an additional connection to the south; and the Shoal Creek Bridge on U.S. 72 would connect the east end of town.

Another possibility is to connect the industrial park with a more direct path to U.S. 72 for commercial traffic.

For residential areas, city planners hope to move away from conventional subdivisions "as they have been developed over the past few decades" and foster development of neighborhoods with pedestrian-oriented activity centers accessible to vehicles and with walkable interconnected streets.

"People want to be able to shop and do their business in their neighborhood," said Bailey. "We've almost come full circle," with the neighborhood concept of yore.

The plan also calls for denser commercial areas that avoid sprawl.

Annexation will also be an issue as the city grows in the future. "Obviously, annexation is going to take place, that is just the nature of cities," said Bailey.

She predicted most of Florence's annexation would take place to the west and east of the city.

With plan in hand, city officials will now have the challenge of putting the resident's vision back into the city.

"Long-range planning is not creating a plan and then -- whew -- we don't have to touch this plan for the next 10 years," said Bailey.

The planning department hopes that, as the city nears budgeting time, city departments will align their priorities with the plan that will gradually shape the city over the long term.

"We won't implement the entire plan this year -- there's no way," said Irons. "But there's got to be set what is our top priority in our action plan and what is our timeline."

Several factors beyond the city's physicality may play important roles in how Florence develops.

"For us to be a healthy community, we need to have a greater population than now," said John Rusevlyan, a commercial real estate developer who attended the meeting. "A lot of this can't be implemented without demographic changes."

Mayor Bobby Irons agreed that other factors would play a role as the plan evolves.

"My goal is to bring people back home that have had to leave and then to bring new people to see enough growth and economic development," said Irons.

"Our vision is to have population growth, new jobs, and opportunities for everyone," said Irons, "We would like to see tremendous growth in this area that we have not had the pleasure to see in the past 15 years."

Staff Writer Trevor Stokes can be reached at 740-5728 or trevor.stokes@timesdaily.com.