Planning commission reviews progress in LaFayette
BY JOHN BRICE
THE LAFAYETTE SUN
LAFAYETTE — Representatives from the East Alabama Regional Planning and Development Commission presented an economic development land use goals review at the ALFA building in LaFayette on Tuesday, Feb. 10. As part of the “Foundations for the Future” project, this review was presented by Principal Planner Shelby Peterson, Regional Planner Elizabeth Harkert and Planning and Development Director Eric Wright. Wright shared what had been covered and where the collective effort goes from here.
“Tonight we really looked at the economic development goals and the land use goals,” he said. “[With] the economic development goals, we are looking at the economy for LaFayette and the surrounding area and what those target areas are and how we are going to get there. These are goals and strategies of those tangible things that LaFayette can do in the next five, 10, 15, 20 years to help develop a robust and vibrant LaFayette — things like workforce, incentivizing different sorts of industry and making sure that business can thrive. What are some things people identify that can be done better, and what are some things that are being done by progressive and thoughtful communities that are vibrant?”
Wright went on to explain the land use aspect of the presentation.
“Another piece was land use goals,” he said. “One of the big pieces we do as part of a comprehensive plan is develop a future land use map, where we take the existing land use and talk about where things are now and where we think would be the best use long term. As we look at those maps, the goals there are: ‘How do we do that? How do we make that transformation? What are those policies and strategies?’”
Wright said it is important to consider housing and the protection of natural resources when discussing land use planning.
“[It is important to consider] things like increasing density of housing, if appropriate, and finding ways to protect natural resources that need to be protected,” Wright said. “Then making sure that the balance of land use is right so that you still have places for industry. One of the things that we have heard from the community over and over again is that we want to make sure that we can recruit a substantial industry to bring workforce here and have people to work. Making sure that we preserve an area for that. It is all about those strategies that will help get a vibrant LaFayette.”
Wright then discussed what has been accomplished so far and the next steps in the process.
“Right now we are turning the corner to the home stretch,” he said. “We have done a lot of the public engagement, a lot of the listening sessions and a lot of the data collection. We have gone through all of our chapters where the comprehensive plan is set up, and we have talked about all of these goals individually. As we are coming to this home stretch, we are going to be synthesizing all of those goals, prioritizing and developing that final action plan that will be at the end of our comprehensive plan. Once we get that done, there are a couple of little pieces we wanted to make sure that we handle when the weather gets nice and we have one last outdoor engagement. Then we will be able to develop and produce a final plan to present to the planning commission, the city council and the public.”
