Boone County continues to make tweaks to the county’s comprehensive plan, which is reviewed every five years.
The comprehensive plan, Our Boone County 2045, was last revised in 2019, and is routinely updated to help guide land use and development throughout unincorporated Boone County and the cities of Florence, Union, and Walton.
The plan consists of numerous goals and objectives adopted by the governments of the county and each aforementioned city. The framework for these goals and objectives includes the environment, natural resources, economy, public facilities and services, and transportation.
“The 2024 goals and objectives represent a future planning year 2045 and aspire to perfectly balance preservation and development efforts while capturing the need and priorities of a vibrant and diverse county-wide landscape,” Boone County Community Development Services Director Jenna LeCount said.
At a May 15 Boone County Planning Commission meeting, Boone County Community Development Services Director Jenna LeCount, who is leading the update effort along with Boone County Preservation Planner Bridget Striker, informed the body of changes suggested by the public during a recent hearing.
Specifically, Boone County is updating Chapter 1, or the Goals and Objectives section of the comprehensive plan. On April 17, the county hosted a public hearing which sought the public’s input about the comprehensive plan draft.
LeCount said the public recommended three changes to the comprehensive plan draft:
- Adding an objective about “identifiable recommendations, anticipated timelines and responsibilities” to the ‘Overall’ Goal section.
- Changing the language of a goal underneath the ‘Environmental Goals and Natural Resources’ section to mention agricultural lands.
- Relocating an objective from the ‘Environmental Goals and Natural Resources’ from Goal B to the Goal A section. The objective talks about protecting agricultural resource lands through preservation, diversification of agricultural uses, and assessing impacts on agricultural operations.
After fielding public feedback, LeCount said the Boone County Long Range Planning Committee voted 4-0 to adopt the suggested changes.
“The goals and objectives were developed with broad public participation and have been written as a guide for the preparation of the remainder of a 2024 Boone County comprehensive plan,” LeCount said.
Once LeCount finished updating the commission, the body unanimously voted to approve the public’s changes to the comprehensive plan’s Goals and Objectives section.
Planning Commission member Janet Kegley implored the public to continue participating in the process.
“I think that we all read, and probably all of you read, the comments from the public,” she said. “As you can see from the changes that we’ve made, we’ve continued to take into account those comments that were made and to change the objectives to try to reflect that.”
Following the planning commission’s approval, the changes will be voted on by the Boone County Fiscal Court, Florence City Council, Union City Commission, and Walton City Council.
In addition to the vote, LeCount said Boone County is nearing the start of a public relations campaign to increase awareness about the comprehensive plan update throughout the county.
Last November, Boone County hired Norwood, Ohio-based Rasor Marketing Communications to aid in marketing efforts. The firm is under contract through June 30.
“We are still in the process of formulating exactly what that campaign is going to look like but the intent is that we will continue to increase not only awareness and input, but real engagement throughout this process,” LeCount said.
