City Launches Community Input Phase of 20-Year Planning Efforts
The Searcy City Council voted in May to move forward with developing a 20-year city master plan in the areas of infrastructure, active transportation and city parks. City officials spent the last several months working with Crafton Tull to survey all current conditions of drainage, roadways, sidewalks, utilities, parks, trails, facilities and more. It is now ready to begin the second phase of the planning which includes public surveys, public meetings, and steering committee meetings.
“We are very excited to enter the community input phase of these planning efforts,” Mayor Kyle Osborne said. “Our main goal with these efforts is to develop a plan that we can all get behind and work towards to improve our community.”
While there will be a series of surveys throughout the process, the first two surveys focus on active transportation and city parks. The goal of these surveys is to understand how citizens are currently using active transportation and city parks, as well as how they would like to use them in the future.
“These surveys are extremely easy for citizens to complete and will allow us to gather input from a large number of people,” City Planning Director Richard Stafford said. “We really encourage everyone to take the time to do this.”
There will also be a series of public meetings where citizens can give input and provide feedback. The first public meeting will be held at the Carmichael Center on Tuesday, October 4 from 5:30pm to 7pm. This meeting will be an open house where community members will have the opportunity to participate in a series of input exercises.
In addition to the public surveys and meetings, steering committees have been formed for each of the three areas of focus. With direction from Crafton Tull, these committees were developed with people who have experience and knowledge in the areas that they will represent. The goal of these committees is to assist Crafton Tull with any information specific to Searcy that’s needed to prepare for the public meetings.
The first two public surveys are now open and can be accessed at the links below.