With a population growth rate approaching 4,000 persons per year, the city is likely to reach a population of 500,000 by the year 2000, and to exceed 600,000 by the year 2020. What's more, the city has grown in land area by an average of 1 square mile per year for the last eight years. With approximately one half of the city still being developed, effective planning is crucial. A comprehensive plan is a general guide that helps a community make decisions about its growth and development. It establishes a clear vision for development within a community, and describes policies, programs and projects that will enable the vision to be realized.
Comprehensive plans have two characteristics.
They are long-range in outlook, and as the name implies, they are comprehensive in scope. Comprehensive plans seek to anticipate the amount and type of growth that might occur for a period of five to 20 years into the future. This time frame gives decision-makers a better understanding of how today's decisions affect quality of life for years to come. In addition, comprehensive plans attempt to anticipate how one decision might impact other decisions. For example, the decision to locate a new manufacturing plant will tend to affect decisions about zoning of nearby property for residential and commercial development or about the expenditure of tax dollars to construct new schools by school districts and parks.