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REGULAR MEETING OCTOBER 23, 2006 <br />and the residents of this community and that is Marco Mariani, George Adler, Jitin Kain. <br />Ms. Meyer stated that she can’t leave out Larry Magliozzi, although he did leave <br />Community and Economic Development to go back to the Area Plan Commission, but he <br />is in an associated arena that helps through the process. Additionally, there were many <br />other City staff people who helped with City Plan. She thanked the planners who were in <br />attendance at every public meeting, Mike Divita, David Fecteau, Chris Dressel, Liz <br />Maradick, and two planners who are no longer with the department, who went on to other <br />jobs Tonya Zozulya, Anthony Dukes. <br />th <br />Mr. George Adler, Staff Planner, Community and Economic Development, 12 Floor <br />County-City Building, 227 W. Jefferson Blvd., South Bend, Indiana. <br />Mr. Adler briefly described how City Plan is structured, as well as address the general <br />terms in the ten core planning chapters. City Plan has thirteen chapters, and a glossary. <br />The first two chapters give an overview of the planning process and provide some <br />information on the history of South Bend and current conditions. Chapters three through <br />twelve are the ten core planning chapters in the documents. Each chapter covers a <br />particular topic. Chapter thirteen covers implementation, specifically the first five years. <br />Each chapter from three to twelve is essentially divided into two parts. The first part has <br />a narrative section that describes the topic that is the focus of the chapter and provides <br />relative information about South Bend. Following that there is a section that provides a <br />goal for that chapter and the objectives and policies in that chapter relating to that topic. <br />The goal is essentially the desired feature condition that the City is aiming for, and the <br />objectives, policies and steps that can be taken to achieve the goal. <br />th <br />Mr. Jitin Kain, Staff Planner, Community and Economic Development, 12 Floor, <br />County-City Building, 227 W. Jefferson Blvd., South Bend, Indiana. <br />Mr. Kain advised that from Mr. Adler’s presentation every chapter has several objectives <br />and policies; there are approximately 350 policies throughout the ten chapters of the plan. <br />Mr. Kain stated that what comes next in any important comprehensive plan is to use those <br />policies to develop priorities for the next several years. The City Plan has a five year <br />action plan which establishes priorities over the next five years. After the plan is <br />completed there are few things that must be done in order to implement the plan. The <br />first is to look at the zoning ordinance or subdivision ordinances to make sure that the <br />plan is compatible with those, because those are the mechanisms that can be used to <br />implement the plan. There are internal procedures that might need to be revised or <br />changed. The plan recommends future studies that need to be conducted and these are <br />some of the ways in implementing the plan. 150 of the 350 polices, were selected <br />through a filtering process in the five year action plan. There are eight strategies in the <br />plan after the 150 polices were filtered out, they organized them on the basis of broad <br />strategies. There are action steps within each of the eight strategies. The first is expand <br />economic opportunities, to create more economic opportunities in the community, <br />housing options in the downtown area was an issue that was heard in the public meetings <br />and one of the top items that was heard in the last round of community meetings held in <br />June 2005. An action step is to develop a plan for housing in the downtown area. By <br />creating that plan it allows for more support and development in the area and creates the <br />critical mass. Another idea was integrated Art related activities into the City economic <br />development strategies. The second strategy is promoting City assets; one way is to <br />highlight the diverse community assets. It was heard at the public input meetings was <br />that the City needs to more aggressively highlight the assets that are in the community. <br />This can be done by creating a formal marketing and promotional strategy for the City. <br />Another idea is to highlight the housing stock and the neighborhoods that the City has. <br />This section also talks about partnering with such groups as the Board of Realtors to <br />promote the style and variety of the existing housing stock. Strategy three is enhance <br />City Services, is to develop emergency preparedness and this will help make the City <br />ready for a natural disaster. Another idea is to recruit a diverse City workforce. The City <br />believes that it is important for the City workforce to reflect the diversity of the <br />community. This idea is an attempt to reach that objective. Strategy four is supporting <br />youth development. The youth that attended many of public input meetings strongly <br />encouraged developing vocational educational classes and creating mentoring programs <br />where the City can get involved and also encourage different employers in the area to get <br />18 <br /> <br />