As a task force moves closer to completing a 20-year vision for Salisbury, members are asking themselves how that vision will be implemented.
What new policies will require funding? What plans will take a change in ordinances? Will the city have to provide incentives to encourage developers to buy into the vision?
The Salisbury Vision 2020 Task Force held its last meeting Monday before sending a final draft of the 2020 Comprehensive Plan to the Salisbury City Council retreat Feb. 9 in Southern Pines. Here are other important dates leading to the plan’s final adoption:
- Feb. 12 — Joint meeting of the task force, council and Salisbury Planning Board to discuss the plan’s content and strategies for implementation.
- Feb. 19 — Vision 2020 Public Forum, 7-9 p.m., City Hall. This will be an “open house” to present the plan to the public and receive citizen input.
- Feb. 20 — At a Salisbury City Council meeting, staff will ask the council to set a public hearing date on the plan.
- March 6 — Public hearing date and possible adoption of the plan.
Two years in the making, the Vision 2020 Plan establishes a future vision for Salisbury and sets forth specific policies to make that vision come true.
The vision emerged from a series of town meetings held early in the planning process. More than 190 pages long, the draft plan set out policies on the preservation, development and redevelopment of residential neighborhoods, commercial areas, industrial areas, the downtown, parks, open spaces and greenways.
Neighborhoods by themselves are divided into older areas (pre-World War II), newer existing areas (World War II to the present) and neighborhoods yet to be.
In addition, the plan tackles other major growth issues such as transportation, appearance, water and sewer extension patterns and an overall growth strategy.
As outlined in a special video made as a companion piece, the Vision 2020 plan aims at making Salisbury a more walkable city, with architecture more oriented to people. It stresses the importance of the downtown as an economic, living and cultural center.
The plan speaks to protecting and developing the city’s character through things such as public art, sidewalks, historic preservation, greenways and parks. It addresses the need to promote environmental quality through land-use planning and thoughtful water-sewer extensions.
The plan emphasizes bringing neighborhoods together and the importance of recognizing the city’s economic and ethnic diversity. The plan’s overall goal is to help provide a place where Salisbury’s children will want to return as adults.
City Manager David Treme warned fellow task force members that implementation of the Vision 2020 Plan could be difficult, because the city will be making shifts in policies that it has followed for some 50 years.
Comparing the 2020 Plan to the Salisbury 2000 Plan, Treme said the new document is more specific and comprehensive and will have a dramatic impact on the city’s organization.
Task force members Karen Alexander and Larry Chilton said the city probably will have to offer attractive incentives for the new policies and tough disincentives (such as higher fees) for the older policies to guide developers into doing the kinds of things the city prefers.
Planning Board Chairman Mark Lewis said his big question is this: Who will take the ball and run with the plan, seeing that its vision is carried out?
Task force members listed a few other concerns Monday night. Steve Blount, chairman of the Rowan County Board of Commissioners, noted that about 40 percent of the plan’s study area lies outside the zoning jurisdiction of Salisbury.
In addition, towns such as Spencer, East Spencer and Granite Quarry share boundaries with Salisbury to the north and east.
Will developers merely step across Salisbury’s jurisdictional line to avoid doing something they might view as more costly, Blount asked. He stressed the importance of having county officials and neighboring municipalities buy into the Vision 2020 concepts.
Task force member Steve Fisher expressed some concern about the plan’s repeated references to neighborhood businesses and asked whether it was placing an unwanted emphasis on potential business development near neighborhoods.
Councilman Bill Burgin, chairman of the task force, said the plan specifically details the architectural compatibility and scale needed for a neighborhood business in trying to make it a place people can walk to rather than having to drive.
Mayor Susan Kluttz said the plan tries to define exactly what kinds of neighborhood businesses would be appropriate. She acknowledged that could be a problem for the task force.
“We all have a vision of the neighborhood store we want or don’t want,” Fisher agreed.
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