CHAPTER ONE - INTRODUCTION

WHY DOES A COMMUNITY HAVE A COMPREHENSIVE PLAN?

A Comprehensive Plan expresses a community's desires about the future image of the community.  It provides the foundation and framework for making physical development and policy decisions in the future.

WHAT IS A COMPREHENSIVE PLAN?

The Comprehensive Plan is a policy guide which describes in text and displays in graphics the community's vision for directing future land development.  A Plan includes several components:

*          It is a policy plan, stating the community's desires for directing land use decisions through the identified goals and policies.

*          It provides a physical plan component by mapping generalized land uses and describing in policies the relationships between different land uses.

*          It is long-range, considering Lawrence and Douglas County's expected growth in the future.  Future land use maps graphically display the potential development of the community.

*          It is comprehensive, considering issues such as demographic, economic and transportation factors which have shaped and will continue to influence land development in Lawrence and the unincorporated areas of Douglas County.

HOW IS THE COMPREHENSIVE PLAN USED?

The Comprehensive Plan provides a vision for the community.  It is used as a policy guide that identifies the community's goals for directing future land use decisions.  The Plan is also used by property owners to identify where and how development should occur; by residents to understand what the city and county anticipates for future land uses within the community; and by the city, county and other public agencies to plan for future improvements to serve the growing population of the community.

Specifically, the city and county use the Comprehensive Plan to evaluate development proposals; to coordinate development at the fringes of the county's cities; to form the foundation for specific area plans; to project future service and facilities needs; and to meet the requirements for federal and state grant programs.  The Comprehensive Plan is used most often as a tool to assist the community's decision makers in evaluating the appropriateness of land development proposals.  The Comprehensive Plan allows the decision makers to look at the entire community and the effects of land use decisions on the community as a whole to determine whether individual proposals are consistent with the overall goals of the community.