Consultant explains start of process to update county’s comprehensive plan

YORK – Mason Herman with Marvin Planning met with the York County Planning and Zoning Commission this past week, to discuss how the process of updating the county’s comprehensive plan will begin.

​Herman said the input of county residents and property owners will be key to the process. “This input is very important and is a major part of this plan. We will gather data, land use information, etc. Then we will start looking at the county’s goals and policies. There has been a lot of change in the last 10 years (since the last time the comprehensive plan for the county was updated) which will set you up for the next 10 years. We want the comprehensive plan to reflect the values of the county and set you up for the future.”
He said postcards will be sent out to the public “as a transparency tool to get the word out” in order to gather public opinion and input. “We want to reach as many people as possible. And there will be posters put up, providing a link to the project website on which there is a survey.”
Herman passed out a copy of a survey to the planning commission members, asking them to check it over “to make sure we have it all correct, as this will be another great way for people to provide their input. We will make every effort to make sure as many people as possible take the survey.”
The survey is now available on the project website which is tinyurl.com/yorkcountycompplan. Hard copies of the survey will also be available at the courthouse.
The survey takes about 10 minutes to complete and everyone who lives in York County is asked to participate. The survey will be available for several months. Simply go to the link, click on the survey, answer the questions and then submit.
The survey asks questions in the following categories: general, economic development, housing, agriculture, recreation, transportation, public safety/health, environment, agricultural economy, threats to agriculture, etc. There are also questions about access to recreation, products, shopping, etc. There is also a rating page pertaining to the work being done by different county departments and service providers. There are also questions about location of the respondent, length of living here, age range, demographics of household, employment classification, etc.
Also planned in the process will be a townhall meeting, “which is a very important part of this process,” Herman said. “We will need to schedule that after the holidays. We will coordinate that with you.”
Herman said meanwhile the consultants have been working on the demographics portion of the plan “and the population here hasn’t really changed, it’s stayed pretty steady which is great. You aren’t losing people, people are moving here. And when it comes to housing, well York County is no different than the trend seen other places as a lot of housing is aging. We are also seeing that nearly 50% of York County people live 20 minutes or less from their work, which we found to be an interesting point.”
This conversation and gradual update of the comprehensive plan will take place over the course of the next year.