Community input sought for comprehensive plan
Workshop event planned for Thursday
The City of Hartselle has partnered with NARCOG Regional Planning Agency in order to create a comprehensive plan for future development for Hartselle. The plan is a long range initiative that looks at all existing conditions within the community, analyzing those conditions through multiple sources of data in order to create a future land use plan for the City of Hartselle.
“They’re typically done on a twenty year horizon working toward a vision, goals and objectives to achieve the plan,” NARCOG Director of Planning Joey Hester said. “To achieve that vision we’ll establish a plan for the city to work towards implementing over the life of the plan and ultimately a comprehensive plan is going to serve as a guide for all of the future development decisions made by city leaders and officials. It’s an important piece of the puzzle for a community when it comes to growth.”
The City of Hartselle is currently in the very early stages of creating a plan and is seeking input from Hartselle residents in order to help determine the vision going forward. There will be a public engagement workshop open house at the Sparkman Civic Center Aug. 17 from 5:30-7:30 p.m. where residents can come and share their perspective.
“It’s going to be an open house workshop format where people can meander in. They can grab some food at the food trucks, sit down and eat, learn about the plan and ask questions. We’ll have different stations for folks to provide their input and a visioning station for people to provide thoughts on what they would like to see Hartselle do in the future,” Hester said.
Mayor Randy Garrison established a steering committee to head up this initiative from a wide variety of Hartselle residents, selecting representatives from the Hartselle Area Chamber of Commerce, the Hartselle City Planning Commission and educators.
“I’d call it our partners,” Garrison said. “We tried to hit all the high points and have people from all walks of life. We’ve got parents, grandparents, people with children in the school system.”
“The kickoff is an opportunity to get public input,” Garrison added. :Let everyone have their voice in what they would like to see Hartselle in the next twenty years. We would like to find out what kind of areas of growth folks are looking for.”
“We’re excited,” Hester added. “I think it’s going to be a fun project and we’ve got an awesome steering committee the mayor put together. There’s a great city staff there to work with and a very involved city council. At the end of the day it’s all about finding out what the residents want Hartselle to be in the future and provide them that road map to get there, and that’s why this open house is so critical to the success of this comprehensive plan.”
