P&Z plays it smart by playing dumb

Planning and Zoning commissioners met for about an hour and a half tonight to hash out how they were going to tackle the somewhat nebulous assignment of performing a five-year update of the city’s comprehensive plan. And, pushed by commissioners Michelle Christie and Mike Wilson and encouraged by outgoing commissioner Dan Ryan, the commissioners came to grips with their own limitations and decided their task was going to be limited to making recommendations on what specific areas of the plan need to be changed/updated. The commissioners decided they will not, however, make any specific recommendations for changes in the plan.

Most comprehensive plans are prepared by urban planners, defined as "a professional who works in the field of urban planning for the purpose of optimizing the effectiveness of a community's land ." The key word, at least to me, in that definition is "professional" and the professionals who helped formulate Kyle’s current Comprehensive Plan are these guys, these guys and these guys. All seven members of the Planning and Zoning Commission, more or less, individually came to the conclusion that "Hey, I don’t have the background or the expertise of any of those guys. What I am is a citizen who volunteered to serve on this commission."

To my way of thinking, it takes a wise person with a lot of security in one’s own self to realize his or her own limitations, and, thus, P&Z came across tonight as a commission composed of seven wise individuals.

The commission is still seeking public input on their task and is going to welcome that input during the public comment section at each of their workshops which are tentatively scheduled for the fourth Tuesday in each of the next three months. Next month’s workshop will concentrate on future land use and open space, November’s subjects will be public facilities and transportation and in December the commissioners plan to tackle urban design and downtown revitalization. But try to keep in mind, the input they are looking for is the public’s ideas on what parts of the current Comprehensive Plan need to be tweaked, drastically altered or nuked completely, but not any actual recommended changes