The Reporter covers Miller, Morgan and Camden County in Central Missouri's Lake of the Ozarks and is published once per week on Wednesdays.

Published March 25, 2015

Comprehensive plan for city seeking public input

OBy Jeff Thompson
CAMDENTON - The city has taken another step towards updating its comprehensive plan reaching 20 years into the future with the creation of a website aimed at both providing information and seeking public input.

The website - www.destinationcamdenton.org - offers an inside look at the process of updating the city’s comprehensive plan - dubbed “Destination Camdenton” - and asks the question:
“Where do we want our community to be in the next 20 years?”

The last plan was developed in 1987; things have changed since then.

“The purpose of the plan is to examine all factors: quality of life, economic development and infrastructure to unite the community around a vision for Camdenton,” the website states.

Five items are listed as priorities - or outcomes - in developing such a plan:
* Coordinating with other community planning efforts, such as airport planning;
* Consider and incorporate input received so far on the potential for a community center;
* Define a future vision, land use, and preliminary revised zoning and subdivision ordinance revisions to implement the plan; and
* Provide a specific implementation plan which identifies actions and steps to be carried out to apply the Camdenton Comprehensive Plan.

The fifth item is all encompassing in its reach:

* Develop a plan that includes land use, transportation, public facilities, public utilities and services, economic development, neighborhoods and housing, historic preservation, growth and annexation, parks, recreation, community center and open space, and a comprehensive downtown plan and/or direction.

The city started in January with an initial meeting of department heads and officials to lay out the beginning groundwork for the comprehensive plan update.

Since then meetings have been scheduled for nearly every month in 2015 and reaching beyond into January of 2016.

However, such an undertaking does not happen in a municipal vacuum and the city is actively seeking the public’s input.

“Community visioning can only succeed if citizens work together, so we need your input,” the website stated. “Over the next few months there will be several opportunities for the citizens and business owners of Camdenton to get engaged in the planning process and provide input.”

Input is not limited to adults.

“Get artsy! Draw a picture of what you’d like Camdenton to look like in 20 years,” the website stated. “Or take pictures around town of things that you like or don’t like about the city.”

Anyone getting “artsy” is encouraged to mail or email their drawings and pictures to City Clerk Renee Kingston.

“Your artwork may be included in our plan,” the website stated.

For more information about participating in the comprehensive plan update, go online to the plan’s website or contact City Hall at 573-346-3600.

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