Memorandum 16-057 Strategic Doing - Comprehensive Plan

Memorandum 16-057

TO:                       MAYOR WYTHE AND HOMER CITY COUNCIL

THROUGH:       KATIE KOESTER, CITY MANAGER

FROM:                 RICK ABBOUD, CITY PLANNER

DATE:                  March 21, 2016

SUBJECT:         STRATEGIC DOING – COMPREHENSIVE PLAN UPDATE

Introduction

At the beginning of the year, the Planning Office started the process of updating our comprehensive plan. It has been just over 5 years old since adoption of our comprehensive plan (a process that took nearly 3 years to complete).  We expect the update process to take at least a year or more to complete in house.

Process

Currently, city staff is providing updates and comments on the parts of the plan where they have working knowledge. This information is then refined and reformatted as appropriate and then it is reviewed by the appropriate committee or commission. Public comment will be solicited once the committees and commission have revised their respective chapters. We anticipate public meetings in the fall. Once all the public comment is addressed and public hearings are held by the Planning Commission, the plan will forwarded to the City Council. Upon approval, it will be forwarded to the Borough for final adoption.  

Current status of the plan

We feel that much of the low hanging fruit has been picked. The city has accomplished a great deal since the plan was adopted. A lot of items have been completed or are being addressed as ongoing activities. It is now time to take a hard look at what has not been accomplished and why.

The plan was written in a vastly difference economic time. The population forecast called for an increasing population and the State of Alaska was awash in oil revenue, so much so that every man women and child was given a $2000 ‘bonus’ by then Governor Palin. Since then, the city has struggled to demonstrate a population gain in Homer and the state government budget is in dire straits. City revenues have not kept pace with ongoing expenses.  We believe that the plan has to be reconsidered with our new reality in which we find ourselves.

Several formatting issues will be addressed in the update. The chapters of the plan were written by different people and not uniformly edited. We hope to make the chapters similar in style and much more user friendly. The implementation tables will be numbered and correspond as direct actions derived from the implementation strategies. This should make using and reporting on the plan much easier. We will also do our best to eliminate overlapping policy between the chapters, for instance, if it is a transportation issue, the related policies should be found there.

We have found several themes that present themselves. Generally, the plan deals with things we can do as an organization and the ways in which we want to influence and work with others outside of the city. We are organizing the chapters accordingly while matching our expectations. The city may only be able to be an example and show support for actions outside of the city organization. It is also apparent that many of the wishes we have as a community call for increased resources. If it is not realistic, we may need to search for new avenues to reach our goals and/or adjust our goals accordingly.

Accomplishments

So far, we have sent out memos to the various departments seeking comment. With Planning Commission input, we have revised Chapter 2, Background and Demographic Information; Chapter 5, Transportation; and Chapter 9, Energy Plan. We are working on other chapters that require input from other committees and commissions prior to public and Planning Commission review.

How might this affect Strategic Doing?

After the plan is adopted it will be necessary to revisit the matrix that council is currently using. I am using the notated version of the implementation table created for Strategic Doing as a tool for the first internal review and update of the plan. A more comprehensive and pointed implementation table that clearly reflects the goals and implementation strategies is being created. This should improve our Strategic Doing effort.  Reporting on progress will be much easier to follow, as a lot of guesswork deciding on what tasks are necessary to complete should be eliminated from the plan.