PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD ENDS 11-14-2022
Yavapai County released the DRAFT Comprehensive 2032 Plan on September 15th for a 60-day public comment period. This plan will set policy for growth and prosperity for the next 10 years, and may include our own Big Park/VOC Community Plan.
What is the relationship between the County Comprehensive Plan and the Big Park-VOC Community Plan? The Comprehensive Plan will drive County policy and decisions, whereas the Big Park/VOC Community Plan establishes OUR community vision and priorities. Our Community Plan describes the unique characteristics that establish our “sense of place”. Our plan must be align with the Comprehensive Plan in order to have weight when Planning & Zoning for our community are decided by the County. As an unincorporated “place”, the County Plan and ordinances prevail.
Why the Comprehensive Plan matters to our community? We would not want policy directives adopted in the Comprehensive Plan that undermine our values. Fortunately, our community provided significant input to the County surveys. Upon examination, you can see that this DRAFT Comprehensive Plan is largely consistent with our community values as expressed in our Vision Statement (included below for reference).
Of key importance – we want Community Plans included in the Comprehensive Plan! One of the items in the DRAFT, at the end, is a statement about incorporating Community Plans such as ours. We encourage you to tell the County that you want Community Plans integrated into the Comprehensive Plan. (Section 10, the very last page, highlighted in blue)
What can you do?
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Review the Draft Plan. To save you time, we created a shortened version with areas of greater impact to our area highlighted in blue. (click here to download). Section 10 is the statement on Community Plans, the final page of the document. The full strength version is 108 pages and includes interesting background on the various topics, which we removed from the short version. (click to download full version)
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Make your comments to the County on their site – by simply clicking the orange button below this text.
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Be on the watch for Community Plan details in coming weeks.
Deadline: Public comment period closes on November 15th – if you have not already weighed in, do so today!
Next Steps: After the Comprehensive Plan Advisory Committee reviews the public comments, then the County Planning & Zoning Commission and Board of Supervisors will each review and incorporate their changes. Formal adoption is forecast for Spring 2023.
Visit VillagePlan2022.org to learn more about the Big Park/VOC Community Plan and subscribe to updates.