A community is best characterized by the makeup of its people and their living and working conditions. Communities with attractive commercial locations, well-kept residential areas, adequate parks and schools, and a street system conducive to the speedy movement of pedestrian and vehicular traffic will generally experience positive growth in both population and economy. A comprehensive plan attempts to bring definition to these features by considering land as a community resource.
Land is no different from any other asset.
There are uses for land that are more efficient than other uses. A community's current comprehensive plan may identify a broad pattern of future land use, but it cannot foresee and answer in detail the host of questions that will occur over time. If the comprehensive plan is, in fact, a guide for moving the community from today to some point in the future, it must be adaptable. A lot of time, money, and effort go into the development and implementation of a comprehensive plan. Here are a few suggestions to help make the plan more useful to public decision-makers, developers, and local residents.