A comprehensive plan, designed to set the standards for development and zoning in Columbus, will be making its way before the city council before summer’s end. City Planner Christina Berry, whose office spear-headed the project, said the city planning commission has approved the plan. A public hearing on the plan, yet to be scheduled, is the next step in the process.
“We are going to advertise for a public hearing,” Berry said. “We have not set a firm date but we hope to have it done by the end of August. After the public hearing, it will go before the city council for final approval.”
According to Berry, the comprehensive plan is a policy document to help with decisions with zoning ordinances and development.
“The plan is broken into several sections,” she said.
One of the sections addresses land-use elements, something Berry said she hopes will be used for neighborhood developments through a potential development authority.
“We have started talking about creating a development authority for Columbus,” said Berry. “We are actively pursuing this. We couldn’t do it this fiscal year because we didn’t have money budgeted for it. Starkville has created one. I hope that we can bring this before the council by the end of the year.”
On July 17, the council unanimously voted to approve Berry’s request to advertise for a consultant to advise on the proposed Highway 45 Overlay District.
“The best way to describe this is to think about downtown,” Berry said. ” Because of the Historic District, things have to be done a certain way downtown. The 45 Overlay District would work in the same way. The merchants on 45 would get together and we would come up with some guidelines for store fronts and landscaping and signage — currently we have no guidelines for signs on Highway 45. They are all different sizes. This would help bring everything to a uniformed look. We want to make the corridor look better and we think it will also help with the safety in area, which is a heavily-traveled stretch of road. We wanted the council to approve a consultant to show their commitment to the project before we tried to get the merchants on board.”
The consultant, Berry said, would look at all aspects of the corridor and make suggestions in areas such as landscaping and how much the project will cost.
Jeff Clark was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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