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All town residents and everyone with an
interest in the town are invited to a
special town meeting Thursday, April 19,
to discuss the Wake Forest Community
Plan, which will be a blueprint for the
town commissioners and advisory groups
as they make future decisions about
growth and the town’s resources.
The meeting will be from 7
to 9 p.m. in the Wake Forest Community
House on West Owen Avenue.
The town and the surrounding
area have grown rapidly in the last 10,
even five, years. There are more jobs,
more businesses, more shops as well as
more people. The town has embarked on a
Renaissance Plan for the central core
and the downtown, and the town has won
the help of the state through the Main
Street Program to enhance the historic
downtown.
The growth and the changes
have put stress on the roads and
streets, utilities, parks and town
services. People are seeing and talking
about sprawling development, the loss of
open space, problems with drainage and
environmental degradation.
To help prepare a plan that
will include a vision of the town 20
years from now as well as strategies to
reach that vision, the Wake Forest
commissioners appointed 11 residents to
the Community Plan steering committee.
That committee, which reports to the
commissioners, can ask for the help of
other boards and receives its technical
support from the town staff and Glenn R.
Harbeck, a planning consultant.
A critical part of the
plan’s development is the involvement of
property owners, residents and business
owners. “The development of the
Community Plan will start from the
ground up,” Harbeck said, “so community
involvement will be the foundation of
the plan.”
The meeting on April 19 is
the first in a series of public
meetings. The opinions and preferences
will be reviewed by the steering
committee for inclusion in the plan.
“The study process will
proceed from the broad to the specific
and from objectives to actions,” Harbeck
said.
One of the public meetings
will be an open house where the draft
plan will be presented for public
comment. There will also be a formal
public hearing about the plan before it
is adopted by the town board.
The steering committee
members are Jeff Adolphsen, Anthony
Allen, Andy Ammons, Kathy Brewer, Mary
Hayes, Stephanie Jenny, Michael Johnson,
Debbie Ludas, Guerda Martin, Tim O’Brien
and Keith Shackleford.
You can talk to Planning
Director Chip Russell about the project
and the future meetings, 554-6142, or go
to
http://www.wakeforestnc.gov/communityplan.aspx. |
