As you know, the Clocktower Collaborative is dedicated to providing unbiased, factual information on topics that affect our daily lives here in Hudson. This article focuses on what’s new with Hudson’s Comprehensive Plan, as well as next steps. For information on other important issues and topics, visit www.clocktowercollab.com.
What is a community comprehensive plan?
A Comprehensive Plan is a long-range vision for the city’s future guided by community input. Once the Plan has been completed and adopted, the city gets to work incorporating this vision into regulations and actions.
The City of Hudson updates the Plan every 10 years. Community members are engaged in the processes through public forums, focus group meetings, online input and a resident survey. The goal is to determine if the Plan is still relevant and/or if changes should be proposed. As a guide for this visioning process, City Council appoints a steering committee to guide the entire process from start to finish.
The committee has been meeting regularly for a year and recently presented the plan at a community workshop held on January 31 in the High School media room.
The committee incorporated the input it gathered from community meetings as well as resident responses to a statistically valid survey completed over the past few months. About 20% of the 3,000 households that received the mail survey responded and an additional 652 responses were received online for a total of more than 1,200 responses.
According to the survey, traffic is the top concern among residents, but the majority (89%) showed interest in a community or recreation center. The committee is exploring whether to recommend if one or both centers should be proposed and if they should be located downtown or in the southern part of town.
The committee also looked at housing recommendations. While 54% of residents indicated that the city does not have nearly enough first-floor living housing, 32% indicated that residential growth has been too fast.
Other results showed that residents believe fiber/broadband is a top investment priority for city services over the next two years, and a majority of residents wanted more dine-in and carry-out restaurants, more retail development and more mixed-use commercial development.
The committee also looked at several land focus areas, including the city-owned undeveloped land in downtown Hudson and on Hines Hill Road.
The committee has posted a draft version of the Comprehensive Plan and project updates on the city website.
It held an open house on January 31 at the high school that drew several hundred residents who provided additional comments on the plan.
The committee plans to approve the final draft in May and submit it to the Planning Commission and City Council. There will be other public hearings at that point.
The Comprehensive Plan will serve as a guide for future decisions in Hudson regarding land use and more. You can view the Plan, survey results and display boards and a slide show from the open house atwww.hudson.oh.us/ComprehensivePlan.
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