Heber City is updating their General Plan. As part of the plan they’ve launched a website.
Utah state law requires all cities within the state to have a general plan. The law dictates that future land use, transportation and housing all be addressed as part of the plan. In addition, the Heber general plan will look at other topics such as commercial and economic development, environmental issues, and community culture.
Heber Mayor Kelleen Potter explains why now is the right time to update the plan.
“Our general plan the most recent overhaul there’ve been some amendments, was in about 2003" Potter explained. "There’s been so much change since then, but the idea of the general plan is its sort of the community’s vision for the future of the community. It’s a blueprint for elected officials and planners to look at to say what is it that this community wants to be? Because so many things have changed since it was done last, we’ve had a lot of people coming in asking for different zoning and changing their land use. We believe that it’s past time to go through this process. This process will help, the public will be able to come and really just sit down and look at maps and look at different options. Give their input about how they want Heber to grow as we continue to grow to be able to control and shape and make decisions of what that will look like.”
City staff has put together a 15-member steering committee to guide the Envision Heber 2050 initiative. The steering committee, made up of a variety of Heber residents, will be meeting throughout the year to identify goals and priorities for the general plan. Once the plan is finalized in a few months it will be recommended in a public hearing at a city planning commission meeting before moving on to the city council. Mayor Potter hopes the entire process might be done in a year.
“Our first meeting for the public, it’s a public workshop on the 20th," Potter continued. "That’s what we’re hoping to get a lot of people to come and participate. That’s the first one, there will be a couple of others after that during the year. We’re hoping to have the whole process pretty well wrapped up within a year. Maybe that’s wishful thinking but again we have this March workshop. We’re going to have an open house in May, we’re going to have another open house in August. We have the steering committee working on things in the background. We’re hoping to get the whole thing wrapped up by the end of the year.”
The first Public meeting will take place on Wednesday March 20th at the Heber Valley Elementary school.
“I guess my biggest hope is that the community will really take this seriously and know that this is an opportunity for them to be heard and to try to come in and be able to express where they think we need to be," Potter said. "We have so many competing demands right now with growth. There’s private property, and there’s density and there’s affordable housing. We’re just hoping to get a lot of participation in this process so that we can make sure that moving forward this plan does represent the shared vision of our community.”
You can find a link to the website for the general plan updatehere.
