By Kate Larsen
Camera Staff Writer

LONGMONT — City officials are asking residents to help guide future decisions about development, land use and transportation.

The City Council and Planning and Zoning Commission will soon begin updating the Longmont Area Comprehensive Plan, and city officials hope changes to the update process will keep residents' ideas about Longmont's future in the forefront.

"It really is meant to be the guiding principle for not only the growth of the city but other things like quality of life benchmarks," said Longmont Mayor Julia Pirnack.

The update process begins tonight with an open house from 6 to 8:30 at the Longmont Library, 409 Fourth Ave.

The comprehensive plan guides the City Council and staff members in decisions that affect Longmont's future. When new development is being considered, it is held up against the plan, Pirnack said.

"This is not a plan that sits on the shelf," said Froda Greenberg, Longmont planner and comprehensive plan project manager.

The five targeted areas for the update are sustainability, transportation, land use mix, regional and state requirements and housekeeping issues such as including the recently drafted open space plan.

Some specific things to be evaluated in this update include land uses north of Colo. 66, a possible neighborhood plan for the Union Reservoir area and the need to construct six lanes on Hover Street between the Diagonal Highway and Third Avenue.

A survey last year showed that residents thought Longmont's biggest problems were population growth, traffic and overcrowded schools. The city's population grew 38 percent in the 1990s — from 51,555 to 71,093, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The last update to Longmont's comprehensive plan was completed in 1995 and took four years. This time, city officials are targeting the five specific areas and want to complete it by August 2003.

Greenberg and her staff are making changes to reach more residents with this latest update to the plan. In addition to public work sessions in which the council and the planning commission will discuss the plan, the update process will hit the road.

Local service organizations, special interest groups and neighborhoods are encouraged to invite the comprehensive plan team to meetings, Greenberg said.

Longmont resident Richard Klug said he plans to go to the open meetings.

"I think the main thing they need to address in the comp plan is pedestrian and cycling lanes in town. I think that needs to be a major part of it," Klug said.

In addition to tonight's open house, the City Council will discuss the comprehensive plan update at work sessions Tuesday, as well as July 16 and Aug. 20. The meetings begin at 7 p.m. in the council chambers at the Civic Center, 350 Kimbark St.

For more information, call Froda Greenberg at (303) 651-8326.

Contact reporter Kate Larsen at larsenk@thedailycamera.com or (303) 473-1361.

May 30, 2002

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