With an eye toward the future, Springfield City Council approved a measure nearly three years in the making at its Jan. 13 meeting when it passed a resolution supporting a long-term planning guide developed by residents.
Named Field Guide 2030, a volunteer committee identified strategic goals with the help of hundreds of local residents that are designed to direct Springfield and Greene County officials for two decades.
A follow-up to Vision 2020, Field Guide 2030 comprises plans for improving the region in 13 areas across four broad themes. Subcommittees focused on each area, or chapter, including arts, culture and tourism; economic development; education and workforce development; housing; and public health. The four themes that informed the suggestions were sustainability, civic engagement, regionalism and minimizing poverty.
Committee Chairman Mark McNay, general manager of Southern Missouri Containers Inc., addressed council before the administrative body voted to approve the resolution. He said the major goals will provide city and county leaders a view of the direction residents want to move their local government.
“It was to provide an overview of the issues we see in our future, both tactically during the next five years and strategically during the next 20,” McNay said at the meeting. “I’m buoyed by the fact that we have a tremendously collaborative community, and I think once we have the menu of options in front of us, we will rise to the occasion and address those.”
Goals identified by the committee include:
- financially sustaining the operating and infrastructure needs of area arts and culture organizations;
- creating a competitive business climate;
- aggressively using economic-development incentives to encourage investment in the community and to encourage job creation and retention;
- strengthening partnerships with community, county, state and federal agencies to meet workforce and life-long training needs of the local service area; and
- creating innovative strategies for revitalization.
Councilman Doug Burlison was the lone member who opposed the resolution, saying he felt the potential costs associated with some of the goals could pose a challenge to economic growth.
“I don’t want people years from now looking back and thinking this is Moses coming down the mountain with the Ten Commandments. I want them to realize this is a guideline and not anything that is locked in stone,” Burlison said.
City Manager Greg Burris said the planning process began in 2011, when he conducted listening tours to gather input from residents, which helped government leaders develop the framework for identifying strategic goals. He acknowledged the goals are flexible.
“It is not intended to in any way encumber or influence future councils,” Burris said. “It gives the community a blue print, and says, ‘Here’s the direction we want to go.’”
Mayor Bob Stephens said he supported the goals, and if there were objectives public or private stakeholders couldn’t afford to meet, they simply wouldn’t meet them.
“This is a communitywide plan. There are items in here that citizens have said they would like in terms of education. We have nothing to do with Springfield Public Schools. It has its own separately elected body. They will be the ones to take hold of that,” Stephens said. “If there is something that requires a financial outlay from the city, that will come here with our two readings. If it requires a financial outlay from the schools, the school board will be dealing with it. The same thing will happen with the county, and the same with nonprofit agencies. If there is a goal in there and Big Brothers Big Sisters can’t afford to do it, it won’t get done.
“But that’s not to say it is not a worthy goal to work toward.”
With the city’s approval secured, Greene County commissioners are next in line to review the goals in the Field Guide 2030, which should occur by mid-February, according to Cora Scott, Springfield’s director of public information and civic engagement.
Parking preferencesFor developers continuing to build student-housing projects with microefficiency apartments just west of Missouri State University, council members approved a bill that changes off-street parking requirements.
The measure was approved by a 7-1 vote, with Councilwoman Jan Fisk in dissent.
“I’m in this area quite a bit, and the on-street parking causes me a lot of grief, so I would prefer to leave (requirements) where they are,” Fisk said.
Councilwoman Cindy Rushefsky also said she had concerns that new guidelines could effectively push cars out into the streets, but she supported the bill with the understanding from Springfield Planning and Development Director Ralph Rognstad city staff would monitor problems that might arise during the next two years.
“I’m like Jan. I share a lot of your reservations,” Rushefsky said, turning to Fisk. “There isn’t any hard and fast data that says, ‘This is how it is going to go.’”
Rushefsky added developers who attended a Community Involvement Committee meeting to talk about their plans eased her concerns that neighborhoods would be impacted.
The approved ordinance, which had been tabled this fall and sent to committee after Rushefsky expressed concerns about changing requirements, defines microefficiency apartments as comprising 400 square feet or less and as generally being occupied by one tenant. Prior to the vote, developers had to provide 1.5 parking spaces for every one-bedroom apartment. Now, only one space is necessary for microefficiencies. Rognstad has said student-housing developers requested the change.
