Cache County planners are in the final stages of updating the General Plan, and they are asking citizens for their input on what they want to see happen in the valley in the next twenty years.
This plan serves as a guiding tool for the county’s vision and goals. Encompassed in it are three other plans including the Urban and Rural Areas Assessment, the Cost of Services Plan, and the Regional Collaboration Plan. All serve to provide long-term stability for the valley.
Coordinating all of these plans is no easy task for county planner Lauren Ryan.
“So we're trying to do kind of three and one right now. So it's been interesting to figure out how those all tied together, but I think it's I think it's working so far,” Ryan said.
The last plan was written in 1998, and the valley has changed a lot since then. The new General Plan aims to adjust the county’s vision in the years to come, while keeping in mind what matters most to the public.
“That's obviously huge here, people love, you know, the access that we have to the mountains and everything,” Ryan said. “Also, of course, we're a big ag community as well. So how do we protect the ag spaces that we still have, and those prime farmlands and everything.”
The General Plan includes implementation strategies that will provide on the ground changes consistent with the plan. Citizens can include their input on these changes by taking the survey on the Imagine Cache website by September 19th. Ryan said public input is an important part of making this all work.
“We don't want to get to the point of the adoption phase where we put a draft out to the public and everyone goes, wait a second, that's not what we want to see,” Ryan said. “So it's really critical now that we get the public's feedback.”
