Fort Smith planning group looks at future trends

Citizens this week got their first chance to see what the future of Fort Smith would look like if the city continues on its current path. But instead of just looking at the future, citizens who took part in Future Fort Smith's second set of community forums were able to influence what the future may look like.

As part of the meetings held Monday (Nov. 18) and Tuesday (Nov. 19) as part of an update to the city's comprehensive plan, citizens were also able to compare the city's growth patterns with what is now the adopted five-page vision statement and see how to more closely align the city's current trajectory and the vision statement.

"We are discussing if we continue on the trend we are on now without giving consideration to the vision, what the desire of the community is for the next 20 years, this is what we will be like in 20 years," Development Services Director Wally Bailey said.

The vision statement adopted by the Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee focuses on unifying local government, citizens, businesses, institutions and civic groups by advancing progress on four different areas:
• Retaining and enhancing community character and quality of life;
• Promoting sound growth and development;
• Growing and diversifying the economy; and
• Uniting people, institutions and government.

According to Planner Brian Traylor of Wallace, Roberts and Todd, the consulting firm paid $340,000 by the city to update the city's comprehensive plan, community members were able to take part in "chip games" and visualize an array of future development choices.

"Chip games help the community visualize the impacts of current development trends and future population projections," Traylor's presentation read. "They encourage discussion about the tradeoffs of different land use types. Also, they can be used to explore new development as well as plan for redevelopment, transportation, and open space."

Development Services Director Wally Bailey said the input received will be taken and directly used in future planning as the city attempts to align planning and policies with the results of the updated comprehensive plan.

"Part of the discussion we had with the citizens last night and what we'll have today with the citizens is putting pieces on a map – where do you think housing needs to be? For example, if we do increase based on the vision of keeping our young people and creating the jobs, we'll have a population increase of about 19,000 people. Where will the housing be and what kind of housing will it be? And the citizens that are hear participating will have the opportunity to put the chips on the map and tell us where they think the housing should be."

Bailey said the process could guide the city to develop further east or take a new direction, focusing on redevelopment and in-fill.

And even as the city's planning department works with the consultants of Wallace, Roberts and Todd to take the public's wishes and incorporate them into a roadmap for the future, Bailey said his staff was well aware of the budget constraints that are likely to be placed on them through the next several years due to declining revenues and talk of deficits. But he said the key to achieving the goals set out in what will ultimately be the adopted comprehensive plan update come down to the Board of Directors prioritizing goals.

"This process doesn't get down into the nitty gritty details of how we can increase our revenue for the city. There might be some discussion about that, but it's really not about that. It's more about visioning and what needs to be done and what can you do," he said. "…When you get down and start developing the policies and developing an implementation plan of how we put the vision policies and goals, developing ordinances if necessary – how we arrive at those, that's going to be at the back of everybody's mind. How are you going to pay for it?"

Bailey said he sees the Board taking the comprehensive plan and using it each year during its annual retreat to re-focus energies, priorities and resources on what the public needs and wants.

"As we start that discussion (of priorities), the first thing we should do it open up the comprehensive plan. We should look at it and say, 'What have we accomplished? What have we not accomplished? What part of the plan do we want to accomplish this year? Or in three years? Or in five years?' It allows us to do some forecasting, perhaps even setting some money aside."

The next Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee meeting has not yet been scheduled, but is likely to take place early in the new year after all input from this week's forums have been analyzed and documented, according to Silvia Vargas, a senior associate and planner with WRT.