2040 Comprehensive Plan Recommended Next Steps
Equitable Communities has partnered with REBIC to request City Council to delay approving the 2040 Comprehensive Plan.
As previously stated, we do not believe the current draft of the 2040 Plan should be considered for approval by the City Council as planned in April. We believe there should be a significant change in the approach to better align the 2040 Plan with the City’s and our citizens goals. It will likely take several more months to create a plan that lives up to the stated goals. The task at hand is to produce a Community supported Plan that achieves the stated goals and final approval should not occur until this is demonstrated based upon community feedback.
We recommend that the City publish the next draft version as soon as possible to reflect the feedback that has been received thus far to demonstrate the impact of feedback on the Plan.
We further suggest that the plan draft be revised on a bi-monthly basis to ensure ongoing progress towards alignment.
This would assist in eliminating the often-stated issue of whether the feedback received from the public has been reflected in changes to the proposed draft.
Any revisions should include feedback that are substantially debated issues
City staff should produce additional educational documents to align proposed strategies to expected outcomes. There is much confusion over the positive and negative impacts of the proposed strategies..
For each of the Big Ideas included in the Plan
What is the expected contribution from each idea to what stated Big Idea?
What are the potential risks of pursuing the Big Idea?
What is the projected economic cost/benefit of each idea?
How likely and how quickly the Big Idea could get implemented?
What are the targeted annual metrics that would validate progress?
One of the stated overarching goals of the Equitable Growth Framework is to “…provide a provide a lens through which to evaluate a deliberate and concerted effort to make a more inclusive and equitable Charlotte[1]”. Therefore, we believe it would help the community to:
Identify which of the proposed actions in the 2040 Comprehensive Plan (including the Big Ideas) would lead to a less racial and income segregation in our Neighborhoods.
What is(are) the proposed metric(s) that would monitor progress with associated annual targets?
Clearly identify the potential conflicts between some of the stated goals (e.g., tree canopy and increased density of Neighborhoods) and a recommended approach to balancing these.
Produce an overall projected economic impact of the proposed strategies (Benefits & Costs) with the potential unintended negative outcomes clearly identified.
Have focused group meetings on each significant issue to ensure that there is effective dialogue on the specifics to better gain a community consensus.
Single-Family rezoning changes
Neighborhoods role in defining desired outcomes (place types) and the ongoing processes to ensure ongoing alignment.
Metrics – are the proposed metrics accurately reflecting the current state of the community and will they assist in monitoring progress on implementation to help drive future revisions?
Developer and other key community groups identified concerns.
Please share with City Council, Mayor and County Commissioners. Please reach out to us with questions.
[1] Page 28 of the published 2040 Comprehensive Plan