Comprehensive Plan process continues

By Ralph Pokorny

Nevada Daily Mail

"We were thinking big," Dr. Warren Lovinger, said before describing his groups suggestion that the city should acquire the flood plane northwest of the city and build a large lake to provide an alternate recreation area for people wanting to go to a lake.

He said that anyone who has flown over that area during flooding knows that area is usually under water.

Lovinger was one of between 40 and 50 Nevada area residents from varied segments of the population who attended the second of three public meetings to gather information to update the city of Nevada's comprehensive plan. The one segment that was noticeably missing from both the first and second meetings were any representatives from the Nevada R-5 School District.

Jackie Carlson, director of planning with Shafer, Kline & Warren Inc,, told the people attending the Tuesday's meeting in the High School commons area the purpose of the meeting was for each group seated at a table to consider the ideas developed at the May 27 meeting and come up with actual projects to be considered for the comprehensive plan.

Carlson said that after Tuesday's meeting they would take the information back to their office and work with it and then schedule a third and final community meeting in about six weeks, between 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m., where residents will be asked to vote for which projects they think are the most important now.

"It will be an open-house, come-and-go type of meeting," she said.

Shafer, Kline & Warren Inc., Lenexa, Kan. was hired by the city to help collect information and produce a complete update of the city's current comprehensive plan which was prepared in 1984 by Oschner, Hare & Hare. Oschner also prepared the comprehensive plan updates for the city in 1975 and 1965.

One of the items the groups considered were the three possible vision statements that were developed from the common themes in the nine statements that were written during the May 27 meeting. Of the three possibilities the most votes were cast for: "Nevada is a safe community that will utilize its proud heritage, openness to diversity and collective resources to be proactive in creating a progressive future. We have a vision to expand and invite business, and advance our education systems, services and recreational opportunities for all citizens."

Although the majority vote was for this statement, a number of participants, like Tim Bullard, felt it had too many "buzz words" and was two long.

"This isn't the final vision statement. There are a lot of changes to make," Sarah Downing, a planner with Shafer, Kline & Warren, said.

In another exercise, each group was asked to take large aerial photographs of the Nevada area and mark possible zoning changes, areas to be annexed, multi-use trails, additional parks or changes to parks and improvements to roads.

With the change of U. S. Highway 71 to Interstate 49, a number of the participants felt that the city should consider annexing property along the current U.S. 71 corridor in anticipation of the change.