Comprehensive plan update in the works

By Randy Bell

The City has authorized a contract with the Central Mississippi Planning and Development District to put together a new comprehensive plan, as the most recent one was prepared in 2018.

The Central Mississippi Planning and Development District (CMPDD) is beginning work to update Clinton’s roadmap to the future. The City’s comprehensive plan takes a long-range look at how Clinton might change in the next twenty to twenty-five years, examining such topics as population and demographics, economic development, community facilities, transportation and land use.

CMPDD recommends that comprehensive plans be updated every five to ten years. Clinton’s current plan was adopted in 2018.

“It does not change your zoning that’s on the ground today,” says CMPDD Principal Planner Gray Ouzts, who met with City leaders at a January 6 work session. “This is a vision that would help guide future zoning decisions.”

At its January 7 meeting, the Board of Aldermen authorized Mayor Phil Fisher to executive a contract with CMPDD at a cost to the City of $25,500.

“We will spend a good bit of time collecting existing land use data that’s the foundation for the plan,” Ouzts says.

CMPDD will meet with City leaders to get their ideas.

“We’ll have a couple of community input sessions, as well,” she says.

According to Ouzts, having a fresh comprehensive plan “helps guide future investment – public investment in infrastructure and private investment.”

Fisher says even if state law didn’t require the City to update its plan, it would make sense to do so.

“Things change,” the mayor says. “When the last [update] was done, the [Mississippi] College project that’s going on right now, Rising Spring, wasn’t even contemplated. How is that going to affect the area? We’ve had growth north and west in houses built. Does that change anything?”

A recent debate over a housing development near the Clinton Parkway shows how land use ideas can evolve over time. The 42 acres are zoned R-1 for the construction of houses, even though the 2018 comprehensive plan identified the property as suitable for commercial development. Kirkland Development originally requested that the land be rezoned for mixed use, which would have included some commercial lots, houses and townhomes but, after failing to get Board of Aldermen approval, submitted a new plan to build 94 homes on the property.

The preliminary plat was approved January 7.