Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, October 27, 1995 TAG: 9510270061
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KIMBERLY N. MARTIN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
A community meeting Saturday morning from 9:30 to 11:30 at Northside High School will be the last opportunity for residents to help mold the statement, which will be presented to the Board of Supervisors in December.
But County Planner Janet Scheid is quick to add that Saturday will not be the end of the visioning process - just this phase of it.
Saturday also marks the beginning of "the hard part," said Anne Marie Green, director of community relations for the county: developing the strategies to make those dreams a reality.
It's a step that's been a long time in coming for many who have participated in the visioning process.
When a draft summary report was presented to the board in August, Supervisors Lee Eddy and Bob Johnson began asking, "Where are the strategies?"
Residents at the community meetings the county held in its 12 planning districts echoed that concern. They, too, were eager to see how the goals outlined in the report would be accomplished.
Scheid said some of the 10 focus groups, which grappled with issues including transportation and natural resource preservation, did begin to develop some strategies. But most of those suggestions aren't in the 15-page summary statement the county has been distributing around town or will have available at Saturday's meeting.
Residents who want to see the reports in their entirety - several hundred pages - soon will be able to find them in local libraries, Scheid said.
"We told them to concentrate on developing the visions, and if they had the time and the commitment left, to start coming up with strategies," Scheid said.
She hopes, however, that residents will bring those ideas Saturday.
Representatives from the 10 focus groups will be available to explain their vision statements and brainstorm more dreams and strategies. The morning is divided into three 30-minute work sessions, so each resident can visit at least three of the groups. Free child care will be available.
The seven-month-long visioning process was the second step in a $40,000 effort - it started with a survey of residents conducted by Virginia Tech - that will culminate in the update of the county's comprehensive plan. The county staff, with more public input, in January will begin updating the comprehensive plan, which dictates land use and planning strategies.
Scheid said the visioning process has changed how the county will approach that update. The county will start by helping neighborhoods draw up their own vision statements. Next, the neighborhoods will decide what will be necessary to make those visions possible, such as repairing a road or building a new fire station, Scheid said.
Green, however, said the comprehensive plan is not all the vision statement can be used for. But it's up to residents to map out how else they want to see it used, and how to keep it from collecting dust on a shelf.
by CNB