News: Northside

 

The Cincinnati Planning Commission unanimously voted on a strategic plan for Northside. It has been in the making for nearly 5 years. Quite a document...

Will this 'strategic plan' be based off of the plan that the residents of Northside put together...or will it be a completely new document??  Or did they finally vote to 'adopt' the plan that Northsiders worked over the years??  Is that what you mean by 'voted on'

 

Did they vote and approve or disapprove of the plan...whats up?

There are three things that the council can do with a neighborhood plan.

 

Accept - which means that they only acknowledge the existence of the plan (it will sit on the shelf and gather dust, never be looked at again)

Approve - the plan is used to mold development in the neighborhood (this is what the northside plan got, this is also what they wanted)

Adopt - Every development in the neighborhood must strictly adhere to the development plan, the plan must be revised, if even slight changes are wanted. ( very strict)

 

Yes this was the plan that has been in development over the last few years and was done without the city planning department (due to lack of staff), it is supported by the neighborhood and also the businesses in the area.

 

There were many unnecessary hurdles that the plan had to go through that the planning department made even more cumbersome, that hopefully would be avoided in future neighborhoods. Neighborhood groups should be commended, when they use little or no city money, in order to write their own well guided, thoughtful plan for THEIR neighborhood. That was not the case over the past few years, and today showed that this new council was not going to act like that any more. Good Job Planning Commission!!!  :clap:  :clap:

I'm getting confused...who voted on it??  Planning Commission, City Council or both?  You seem to be using the two interchangeably, but they are separate units.  Commission only has the legal power to do certain things, and in a case like this I would assume they made a recommendation to council (which is generally followed).  Then council looks over the materials and the commission's recommendations and makes a final legally binding decission.

 

Could you clarify which took place?

There were many unnecessary hurdles that the plan had to go through that the planning department made even more cumbersome, that hopefully would be avoided in future neighborhoods.

 

Wait a minute...what planning department?!?!

There were many unnecessary hurdles that the plan had to go through that the planning department made even more cumbersome, that hopefully would be avoided in future neighborhoods.

 

Wait a minute...what planning department?!?!

 

What?  Did they reinstate the cumbersome planning department yet in the new city budget? 

sorry for the mis communication... it is technically not the planning department, it is the community development department...i have noticed that this department does seem pretty much like a planning department

Please remember to put the name of the city in the title.

 

sorry for the mis communication... it is technically not the planning department, it is the community development department...i have noticed that this department does seem pretty much like a planning department

 

Pretty much...minus an adequate planning staff for a city of 300,000, a planning director, long-range planning, comprehensive planning.  But I guess zoning requests, alley vacations, etc is pretty much the same thing.

 

*exhales*

[/venting]

they do everything you just stated....just not nearly enough for 300,000 people...they are currently doing a neighborhood plan for mt. washington

If thats the case then why hasn't the Cincinnati Comprehensive Plan been updated in ages.  I know they do neighborhood plans, but there is very little comprehensive planning done for the entire city (at least to my knowledge...I would love to know that they are working on a comp. plan update).  The same is said for the departments long-range planning...its done on a neighborhood level.

This is indeed good news.

Just FYI the plan is available in pdf format here (note: it's big, 40 mb or so).  I second UCPlanner's kudos to the planning commission as the surprisingly negative staff recommendation was to accept, which, as noted, is essentially ignore.  The hearing was my first chance to see Milton Dohoney in action and he impressed me by cutting to the chase in regards to the staff objections (most of which were only pertinent if the commission were to adopt the document).  My understanding is that council must still vote on this but, as noted, commission recommendations are generally followed.