Overview
Planning is an orderly, open approach to reaching specific community-wide goals. It is a process to help a community examine where it has been, where it wants to go, and how to get there by identifying where investment will be aimed and what community priorities will be fostered.
Planning also helps communities avoid extra costs that can arise from short-sighted decision making. A comprehensive plan gives taxpayers and the private sector a predictability and certainty on future development and public investment in services and infrastructure.
Planning: A Consensus-driven Investment
The public should expect their infrastructure investments to be tied to a plan and to a budget. This means planning efforts should be rational and fiscally constrained. It also means that plans should prioritize investments, development, and policies that improve community value and wellbeing. Planning should be consensus-driven and reflect public concerns and priorities based on input from broad-based constituents. These include citizens, businesses, community organizations, government leaders, and others.
The comprehensive plan is the fundamental tool for ensuring that development is consistent with community resources and priorities. Proper planning helps ensure adequate resources and services are available; helps prevent shortages and issues; and avoids the need for costly reactive mitigation of problems that would not have otherwise arisen.
How Comprehensive Planning Ties to OKI Funding Process
Local comprehensive planning is fundamental to sound community development and decision-making. OKI rewards communities that include planning into the scoring process used to allocate transportation improvement funding. A transportation improvement project that aligns with a community’s comprehensive plan typically reflects a sound investment with strong local support.