Denton is asking residents for direction as it develops a long-range roadmap for growth and development.
The city is working on updating its comprehensive plan, and city spokeswoman Kiersten Dieterle said the point is for residents to provide the vision for the city’s future.
“It’s Denton-specific, and what people want their town to be like,” Dieterle told us.
Any resident who would like to contribute to the effort is invited to do so, and there are several ways to participate.
The city has already launched a website, dentonplan2030.com, where residents will find information about what a comprehensive plan is, details about the update and instructions on how to get involved. Residents can sign up for e-newsletters or follow the plan’s progress on social media, including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. You can also e-mail questions concerning the update to the city at information@dentonplan2030.com.
The city has scheduled several meetings that will have the topic as an agenda item.
This week, a presentation from a planning consultant will be
held Monday, and residents can also learn more at the City Council meeting
Tuesday and the Planning and Zoning Commission meeting Wednesday. You can get
more information about these meetings at www.city
ofdenton.com.
The city will have an open house from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Aug. 9, at the Center for the Visual Arts, 400 E. Hickory St., to solicit feedback on the plan. And the city will offer three forums in the fall.
City officials have made it clear that they’re looking for feedback on a variety of topics, including land use, community services, quality of life and economic and environmental issues.
We encourage all Denton residents to share thoughts and concerns about the direction they’d like to see their city take. City leaders will use the feedback to update the city’s comprehensive plan for the next 20 years, and the more feedback they get, the better.
Residents told city leaders about 12 years ago what they wanted to see as Denton grew for the city’s first comprehensive plan.
Resident feedback in 1999 led the city to draft both a master plan and an implementation plan for downtown. Discussions about the rail line were conceptual then, according to city spokesman John Cabrales. The Denton County Transportation Authority built its terminus for the A-train in downtown Denton, triggering related development. Transit-oriented development could be a part of the updated plan, Cabrales told us.
Thanks to advances in technology, city officials are hoping to get more public input this time around, and they said that advances in geographical information systems will allow for more detailed reports.
“For example, we can look at retail versus population and see whether an area is underserved,” said Brian Lockley, administrator in the city’s planning division.
The city has already sent a mass e-mail to about a thousand addresses and gotten some responses, officials told us.
That’s a promising start, and we’re sure that many, many more Denton residents will take advantage of this opportunity to help shape the city’s future.
Denton has experienced significant growth since the comprehensive plan was implemented a few years ago, and an update is overdue.
Let’s all do our part to help. It’s the best way to ensure that the city’s future growth and development will be the result of a shared vision for progress.
