Plan Fort Collins “The Big Reveal”

What is “Plan Fort Collins”

Fast forward 20 years. What’s it like to live in Fort Collins? In 2010, the City will lead a major visioning effort to define our community’s future. Plan Fort Collins is a community-wide effort to create a new City Plan and Transportation Master Plan.

• Economic Health
• Environmental Resources
• Community and Neighborhood Livability
• Safety and Wellness
• Culture, Parks and Recreation
• Transportation
• High Performing Community

Plan’s Purpose

• “Plan Fort Collins – Innovate, Sustain, Connect” is a community-wide visioning effort to update and refine City Plan and the Transportation Master Plan (TMP).
• These plans guide the way our City looks, feels and develops.
• The community faces many challenges and opportunities, and we need to address lessons learned from the past and explore the new trends that will be shaping the future of our community. Some of the challenges that this planning effort will tackle include changing demographics (ex., aging population), technological change, energy and water usage, and the expectation that all of the remaining vacant land in the community will build out within the next 20-25 years.
• “Plan Fort Collins” will blend what has worked really well in the past with new ideas and best practices.
• Some new key ideas that will be explored include sustainability (economic, social, and environmental), arts and culture, and health and wellness. 

Why Now?

• It has been more than 10 years since both plans were prepared and adopted, and 5 years since they were last updated; conditions have changed and it’s time to take another look at the vision, goals and policies for how we want Fort Collins to look and be like over the next 5, 25, 50 years and beyond.
• This is an important time for conducting the project, given the rapidly changing world we live in – locally, regionally, nationally, and globally.
• During these times of rapid change and uncertain economic times, it is important to chart our course for a brighter future.
• It’s a high priority project for the current City Council; they approved funds in the City Budget; they will also consider the plans’ adoption and implementation.  

Plan Underway/One Year Effort

• The plan will be completed in a little over a year. We are aiming for adoption in January/February 2011. There will also be a list of recommended implementation items, some of which will be adopted on or before March 2011.

Sustainability and Plan Fort Collins

Sustainability has been a key driver in the process of developing the plan from the beginning of the project. Specifically, three main tenants of sustainability have been integrated into the planning process:

• Triple bottom line analysis: considering environmental, economic and human outcomes in decision making.
• Systems thinking: recognizing that issues and topics cannot be evaluated or addressed in isolation; using sustainability as a unifying concept to integrate and connect topics.
• Continuous improvement : constantly monitoring, evaluating, and adjusting actions over time to move toward the City’s desired vision.

City Staff/Consultant Partnership

• Staff from all departments will be heavily involved in the effort, including but not limited to, providing technical support, research, policy development, organizing internal discussions, and public outreach.
• The City hired a team of consultants to assist staff, after a request for proposals (competitive-bid).
• The Clarion Associates team is a locally-based team of experts in various fields. It includes Brendle Group of Fort Collins (energy and sustainability), Fehr & Peers (transportation), PlaceMatters (public outreach), Coley Forrest (finance), Wenk Associates (stormwater), with Interwest for technical support, with Clarion managing the effort and guiding land use, urban design, and other topics.
• A local consultant team has multiple benefits. It is more cost effective and the consultants are vested in the success of this project and the community. The consultant team brings a wealth of experience and knowledge on the issues facing our community. 

Public Outreach – New Technology

• Broad-based community input is very important to make sure the plans reflects diverse viewpoints in the community and will have strong support over time.
• We will regularly meet with City Council, City boards and commissions, host public events, and conduct focus group meetings.
• People can sign up for emails announcing public involvement opportunities and other project information.
• We also recognize that people are participating in new ways: the web, live-polling, TV/video, social media, etc. We’ll be using all those tools.