Tag Archives: comprehensive plan

Nice crowd for Saturday city comp plan forum

Mayor Bell signs in Aug comp plan. acnatta/Flickr.The competition was stiff Saturday morning, including this year’s Sidewalk Film Festival & a couple of large meetings across town. In spite of those other options, a crowd of at least 250 people gathered at the Birmingham Museum of Art for the final scheduled public forum for Birmingham’s comprehensive plan process.

Birmingham mayor William Bell even stopped by and signed in. He also opened the three-hour session with remarks. Fox 6’s Steve Crocker served as the event’s moderator.

Those in attendance learned about some of the recommendations being considered for the final document, which will soon be made available both online via the project’s official website and at your local Birmingham Public Library branch for a period of public comment. The plan will then need to be adopted by both the city’s planning commission and City Council.

There’s a more detailed description written by forum attendee (& Birmingham News business reporter) Roy Williams and posted yesterday. There’s also this piece of commentary over on Dear Birmingham from earlier today wondering about what else needs to happen to make this a reality.

Help shape Birmingham’s vision on October 22

Logo for The Birmingham Comprehensive Plan processThis Saturday morning some folks will head to Talladega for Sunday’s race, Tuscaloosa for the Crimson Tide’s annual battle with Tennessee, and area households and watering holes to prepare to watch Auburn’s game against LSU.

Organizers hope a large crowd will also be gathered at the Birmingham CrossPlex on the city’s west side between 9 a.m. – 1 p.m. – ready to help shape the city of Birmingham’s future.

Those in attendance will be participating in the citywide visioning session – kicking off public participation in the city of Birmingham’s first comprehensive plan since 1961 (and announced back in July by Mayor Bell).

This process – The Plan – appears to be shaping up to be a more holistic one than what was carried out then – perhaps with some sections looking at issues similar to the audit conducted at that time (delivered only in draft form) and available as a PDF thanks to The Heaviest Corner.

We could try to explain what a comp plan is ourselves, but figured it made more sense to link to the project website’s about page and share the language included in this overview flyer:

A comprehensive plan (“comp plan”) is a strategic framework for future action to guide the physical and economic development of the city based on the community’s vision and goals. During the planning process, residents get a chance to understand and consider a range of opportunities, constraints, and options in a systematic way. The Plan will help the City of Birmingham actively seek positive change and deflect negative change, rather than simply react to change after it has occurred…

Maybe we’ll see some comments tomorrow about how the session went?

NOTE: Terminal Station Master André Natta is a member of the Comp Plan steering committee (full list as PDF).