Plans need a new plan The time has come in Bath and Highland counties to rethink the way the comprehensive plans are revised. The painfully slow process by which these hefty land use documents have been handled for years has left residents uneasy about how their quality of life is defined and guided. Bath and Highland supervisors, and their respective planning officials, need a fresh strategy that takes the tortuous job of reviewing every word in the pages and pages of information, and makes goals, chapters and issues a priority an ongoing dialogue.
Comprehensive plans are mandated by the state to give direction to localities' development and reflect what citizens want their communities to look like. They are not legally binding in terms of planning decisions, but state law requires they be reviewed and/or revised every five years. Neither county has managed to make that happen, but there is little in Virginia code to enforce the timetable on cities or counties who don't get it done on time.
Comprehensive plans may only be tools, but they carry weight and influence on virtually every decision your elected and appointed officials make. Ordinances are supposed to be written with their goals in mind so building and zoning decisions can be made according to a locality's long-term choices.
Because the revisions for both counties are now long overdue, the process for making changes is much more difficult.
In Bath, decades went by before the most recent comprehensive plan review got started. The first one was adopted in 1979, and then wasn't reviewed for nearly 20 years. A newer plan wasn't adopted until 1999, and now that one is three years overdue.
A committee had been appointed to undertake the project, but committee members came and went. Initial meetings with citizens were held and then much of the input provided was not addressed in the draft. County planner Miranda Redinger alerted Bath's planning commission to several issues the comprehensive plan should address. Commissioners agreed they were important, and an effort has been under way to make sure they, too, are in the next plan.
Bath is currently close to finishing the process after several delays, but it has yet to go through the public hearing process and review by supervisors, which could change several goals or chapters.
In Highland County, the original review committee, after putting months of work into its review, was dissolved by supervisors who felt it was taking too long. The board put the responsibility squarely on planners to revamp the process and the committee, and after a January goal was set for completion, it now looks more like September before it will be complete. Issues like ridge line protection, wind energy, the McDowell Battlefield, and the balance between agriculture and other zoning classifications are still a matter of debate among committee members.
Is there a better way?
Other cities and counties have chosen not only to stick to the mandatory five-year review schedule, but to examine comprehensive plans even more often, adopting amendments to their plans along the way, or scheduling certain topics or strategies for discussion that can lead to a faster revision when the time comes.
Bath and Highland should seriously consider this method. All the central issues at the forefront should certainly be addressed in the new land use plans in both counties, but it's doubtful all of them can be thoroughly researched before the plans are published. Planners and committee members in both counties are correctly trying to, at minimum, make sure those issues have some reference in the plans, but if they attempt to sort out every detail at once, it would be years more before any drafts were ready.
A permanent committee of some kind in both counties can regularly tackle land use topics from mixed zoning, historic districts, and wind power or cellular towers to setback requirements and growth areas. Supervisors would be reluctant to shell out much cash for such a system, but given the proactive citizenry in both counties, there would undoubtedly be no shortage of interested, knowledgable, and qualified residents who would volunteer for the task.
Such a group could meet monthly or quarterly to take up a certain agenda of issues and give them the time and research they require. It doesn't mean the comprehensive plans have to be reprinted more often than every five years, but when those times come, amendments and goals should already have been discussed to the point where conclusions based on majority opinion are established.
As they are created, guiding principals can be in place for rewriting building and zoning ordinances which Bath and Highland have neglected for so long that planners are consistently faced with permit or variance decisions based on outdated and often conflicting regulations.
Development pressure in many forms has been increasing in this area for a long time and it's only going to increase. Proper planning is vital to protecting our environment while simultaneously encouraging appropriate growth. County leaders need to face the fact that planning and zoning here is an ever-evolving process, requiring constant attention. The failure to keep ordinances and land use plans up to date has left us vulnerable to outside development forces, some of which are eager to take advantage of the inconsistencies.
The plans, when finished this time, will not forever lay out the future for Bath and Highland. They're not designed to. They will always contain flexibility, and seemingly incompatible goals - that is the character of balance.
Growth and preservation should always be sought simultaneously and good planning is the only thing that will make it possible for the two to coexist. It happens on a continuum, not in fits and starts that take years to accomplish.
This should be the last time it's such a chore.
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