Comprehensive plan revival
After a year of redrafting, Ketchums plan is ready for public
scrutiny
By GREG STAHL
Express Staff Writer
(click on map for a larger version)
"Will future development fit the
neighborhood? When will a public swimming pool and pocket parks become a
reality? Will the plan be able to contain growth within Ketchums community core?
Will future traffic lanes promote traffic calming or chaos?"
A new comprehensive vision for a citys future only comes around
every 10 to 20 years, and Ketchums hit the streets on Monday.
Ketchum planners had spent the past year redrafting the citys
comprehensive plan.
After several heated public hearings last fall and winter on a proposed
draft of a new plan, the Ketchum Planning and Zoning Commission decided to rewrite the
entire document and use the 1983 comprehensive plans format as a model for the new
draft.
According to Ketchum senior planner Tory Canfield, a comprehensive plan is
both a blueprint for a citys future and an action plan that shows how to accomplish
goals and policies set forth by the draft.
Exact timelines are not set for comprehensive plan renewal, she said, but
comprehensive plans generally look 20 years into the future.
That means Ketchums 1983 plan has almost outlived its usefulness.
Additionally, Canfield said, most of the goals set forth in the 1983 plan have been
accomplished.
The new draft looks into an array of issues facing the north valley
mountain community. Everything from growth, history, housing and transportationsome
of the valleys biggest issuesto sidewalks, wildlife and avalanches are covered
in the plan.
"Over the course of the past two decades, the city of Ketchum has
transitioned from a small resort town, dependent upon the ski industry, into a
multi-faced, economically diverse community with significant year-round activity,"
the plans introduction states.
"This plan will guide the growth of the next decade to insure that
the very qualities that make Ketchum special are not degraded by ongoing
development," it concludes.
The draft plan is available to valley residents at the Ketchum planning
department.
Additionally, a meeting at the Nexstage theater in Ketchum tomorrow will
focus on public opinions of the plan.
The meeting will incorporate an open-house format, allowing valley
residents to arrive anytime between 4:30 p.m. and 7 p.m.
"Will future development fit the neighborhood? When will
a public swimming pool and pocket parks become a reality? Will the plan be
able to contain growth within Ketchums community core? Will future traffic lanes
promote traffic calming or chaos?" Those are some of the questions, posed in a city
press release that the city wants to ask of Ketchum residents.