After over a year of development, City Manager Ryan Heiland shared an update on Maryville’s new comprehensive plan, Maryville Momentum 2045, at the Maryville City Council meeting March 9.
Heiland said the purpose of a comprehensive plan is to outline a city’s goals; it also guides the city’s land use and development plans. The current comprehensive plan, which was adopted in 2012, allowed Maryville to secure nearly $28 million in grant funding for its initial projects.
Now that those are wrapping up, creating a new comprehensive plan hopes to continue securing grants and improving the city one initiative at a time.
Heiland incorporated the community throughout the Maryville Momentum 2045 drafting process.
“The intent of the plan and its action items are to identify priorities for development areas and different land uses over the next 20 years,” Heiland said.
A Maryville Momentum 2045 website was created, allowing residents to pinpoint areas of need in the city. It featured monthly surveys to gain additional input.
Heiland said the website attracted over 2,000 visitors, nearly 200 “pinpoints” on the map and about 800 poll responses.
Along with the website, multiple listening sessions, round-table discussions and other meetings were held to encourage resident participation. Heiland said some of these events brought in developers, renters, major employers and other groups whose input was deemed important to the city’s future.
A steering committee then compiled all of the data and highlighted the most important aspects. The plan focuses on seven main areas of improvement for Maryville: Development Framework, Housing and Neighborhoods, Downtown, Transportation and Mobility, Parks and Recreation, Facilities and Infrastructure, and Economic Development.
Development Framework centers around growth areas and includes potential future land use, formative concepts and expansions.
“We actually — this really didn’t change a whole lot — but we did expand on the uses, and we did expand in some areas, especially on the south edge of town,” Heiland said. “There’s a couple of areas that we actually included that go beyond city limits right now that have the potential to eventually come into (the) city…right next to Kawasaki looks like prime area for commercial development in that part of town.”
Many other ideas for retail and residential developments were also pitched.
The main priority for Transportation and Mobility is east-west arterial connections within the town. Multiple plans are already in motion to achieve this, but more is to be done.
“We do have the First Street redevelopment plan under development right now…it should be wrapped up this summer,” Heiland said. “Then we also have the South Avenue redevelopment plan.”
For Parks and Recreation, Heiland said the main goals are to maintain the existing facility, diversify parks, expand recreational programming and continue to advance Mozingo Lake Recreation Park as a regional destination.
Similarly, the aim for Housing and Neighborhoods is to improve the existing housing options and expand the diversity of housing types the city offers. Heiland said a big topic that seemed to come up a lot when meeting with groups was promoting infill developments on vacant lots.
“How do we encourage that?” Heiland said. “There seems to be a lot of lot holding out there — how do we encourage people to turn those lots (over to) developers to allow for some different housing options for that?”
Along with more housing variety, ensuring that houses are moderately-priced is another goal.
As for Downtown, the Downtown Pedestrian Alleyway and Downtown Pavilion projects are already underway. These aim to improve the infrastructure and aesthetics of Downtown Maryville.
Modernization is the hope of Facilities and Infrastructure. This includes upgrades to the City Hall building, water and sewer systems and the new water treatment plant.
Heiland said the goals for Economic Development are to continue supporting local businesses so they stay, grow and thrive.
After outlining the goals for the Maryville Momentum 2045 draft, Heiland said he would take it to the Planning & Zoning Commission’s meeting next Thursday, as the commission approves the plan.
This story comes from our partners at the Northwest Missourian, the campus newspaper of Northwest Missouri State University.