by Nathan Boddy
At their regular meeting on Tuesday, August 2nd, the Hamilton City Council passed a Resolution of Intent to adopt a new Comprehensive Plan. The Resolution paves the way for bringing the Plan before the City Council once again on Tuesday, August 16th. If, at that point, the Council votes in favor of its adoption, the Comprehensive Plan will become the City’s new guiding document for growth, effectively replacing the 2015 ‘Growth Policy.’
According to the Montana Department of Commerce, “A Comprehensive Plan is an official public document adopted and used by a local government as a general guide for decisions regarding the community’s physical development.” State law also requires a municipality to review its Comprehensive Plan every five years to determine if changes need to be made. In the case of Hamilton, the proposed Plan makes clear points as to why a policy for steering and managing growth is important. One such point is the fact that Hamilton sits in a valley which will undoubtedly experience substantial growth, whether the city prepares for it or not. Preparation, therefore, can have positive results in everything from infrastructure and provision of services, to security and tax base. According to the proposed Plan, the residential population of Hamilton alone is projected to increase 17% in the next 10 years.
Matthew Rohrbach, City Planner and Grant Administrator for the City of Hamilton, has spent the last year working with residents, staff and consultant Logan Simpson, to bring this draft plan to the City Council. He understands that its adoption is important for the City.
“The comprehensive plan is kind of the overarching policy document,” said Rohrbach. “If and when this is adopted, we will start and tax base. According to the proposed Plan, the residential population of Hamilton alone is projected to increase 17% in the next 10 years.
Matthew Rohrbach, City Planner and Grant Administrator for the City of Hamilton, has spent the last year working with residents, staff and consultant Logan Simpson, to bring this draft plan to the City Council. He understands that its adoption is important for the City.
“The comprehensive plan is kind of the overarching policy document,” said Rohrbach. “If and when this is adopted, we will start to look at some of those development standards to align with the plan, and those really influence the development on the ground.” He adds that a Comprehensive Plan ultimately is the tool that sets the stage for what future growth will look like.
The draft Plan has, at its core, three central ‘Guiding Themes,’ which were developed early in the planning process. They are: grow in a thoughtful and proactive way, maintain a small-town character, and, strengthen self-sufficiency and resiliency. In order to identify those themes, and create a set of goals to achieve them, Rohrbach says that city staff made extensive efforts to listen to the public.
“We really tried to focus on getting as much community engagement as we could and making sure it was meaningful public engagement,” he says, adding that staff held multiple sessions in many locations throughout town over the last year, but also used a web-based interactive tool as a clearinghouse for information about the process. Rohrbach saw the process as “checking in with the community” and trying to let people know that growth is not simply a “faucet we can turn off,” but also giving residents an opportunity to describe what is important to them about Hamilton, in order to preserve it. In as much as those elements can be defined within a Comprehensive Plan, that Plan should, in turn, become a future guide for the inevitable changes within town.
“This is the document that guides that growth,” says Rohrbach.
Also on Tuesday, the City Council voted to confirm the appointment of Nathaniel Newman as a Probationary Police Officer for the City of Hamilton. His swearing in will take place on August 24th at 8 a.m. Newman says that he is happy to be here.
