Comprehensive Plan 2021

Comprehensive Plan -- A work in progress

The Comprehensive Plan is the document that guides all planning-, zoning- and development-related decisions. The City of Beaufort's Comprehensive Plan was last updated in 2009.

The City of Beaufort Community & Economic Development Department presented the working outline of an updated Comprehensive Plan to City Council at its July 13 Work Session. Comments from stakeholders and the public will be taken from July 14 through Sept. 13.

This outline is intended to help focus review and facilitate public comment. It has been informed by the Beaufort 2030 Future Vision exercise, the City’s Strategic Plan, the Civic Master Plan, and the 2009 Comprehensive Plan. It has been a collaborative effort between city staff, the Lowcountry Council of Government planning staff, and DesignWorkShop consultants.

The overarching principles guiding the creation of the document are:

1. Provide background information that will help inform future decisions and the formulation of goals and objectives going forward.
2. Keep the document lean without compromising essential information.
3. Make it easy to update.

Timetable

Please go here to review the timetable.

Working outline

The working outline can be found here. It is divided into subject matter so that each element can be reviewed more easily.

How to comment

There are a couple of ways to comment. We have set up a community engagement project page, which you can find here. This will take you through each section of the document, and solicit your input.

You can also read or peruse the document, and then email your comments and input to Senior Planner Dan Frazier at dfrazier@cityofbeaufort.org. PLEASE INCLUDE YOUR NAME AND ADDRESS! We would like to map out where the comments are coming from.

Background

Beaufort's proposed 2021 Comprehensive Plan builds on these previous works:

Vision Beaufort 2009 Comprehensive Plan

The Vision Beaufort 2009 Comprehensive Plan was the first such plan to focus on infill development. It also highlighted implementation strategies to ensure recommendations had a clear path to being accomplished.

Land Use Framework Plan

The Framework Plans, produced as part of the Vision Beaufort plan, provides a more fine-grained approach to land-use policy recommendations. The plan is structured to suggest patterns of growth that are constructed in a manner consistent with our existing, historic fabric with a well-connected street network, diverse housing, access to nature, mixed-use activity centers, and a highly walkable urban block structure.

Civic Master Plan

That document was supplemented by the 2014 Civic Master Plan which took a closer look at specific projects and strategies at a lot, block, neighborhood, and city-wide scale. Both documents ensure that land development fulfills the following goals:

• Beautiful, stable neighborhoods
• A sustainable economic base
• Convenient access to services and destinations
• Attractive community gateways and corridors
• A fair, consistent, and accountable development process
• Preserving natural resources, while balancing protection with public access
• Balancing preservation of our historic heritage and compatible redevelopment