HOLMES BEACH – It’s taken about 18 months for the Planning Commission to finish its review and revisions of the city’s comprehensive plan, and now city commissioners are ready to discuss those changes at a public hearing.
During a Feb. 22 work session, city commissioners reviewed the changes to the comprehensive plan submitted by planning commissioners along with representatives from LaRue Planning, who assisted in the audit.
Some of the biggest proposed changes include the addition of a property rights element and the incorporation of arts and culture as a part of the recreation element. Each element of the comprehensive plan was also amended to make it easier to understand and to incorporate the city’s vision and value statements.
City commissioners praised everyone who worked on the revisions.
“A lot of people worked very hard on this. It took a lot of time,” Commissioner Carol Soustek said. “I think it’s about as good as it can get. It’s so clean now,” she said of the comprehensive plan.
As a part of the comprehensive plan review, planning commissioners held several public meetings along with a workshop to go over the proposed changes and get public input.
Now the amended comprehensive plan will go before city commissioners for a public hearing and a vote at the Tuesday, March 8 meeting before being submitted to the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO) for review. If the changes pass the city commission’s first vote, they must be submitted to the DEO within 10 days, after which that organization has 30 days to review and provide comments and required changes to the document.
After those comments are received and any necessary revisions are made, city commissioners must schedule a final public hearing and vote for the comprehensive plan before it is resubmitted to the DEO for a final review and then officially adopted by the city.
City commissioners estimate that the comprehensive plan changes could be officially adopted as early as the end of June, pending approval by the state.
To review all of the proposed changes for the comprehensive plan, visit the LaRue Planning website.
Related coverage
