What is a Comprehensive Plan?
A comprehensive plan is a long-range strategic plan that provides a framework for future growth and development. The comprehensive planning process begins by identifying a community’s existing physical and social infrastructure to highlight strengths and desired areas for improvement. Through a visioning process, goals are outlined for the community and specific strategies are identified that will lead to the realization of those goals. A comprehensive plan is a “living document” to be used as a benchmark tool against which actual realized accomplishments can be compared and strategies can be modified to fit the ever-changing landscape of the community.
How is Jenkintown2035 Different?
Jenkintown2035 takes the standard comprehensive planning process one step further by synthesizing the information gathered and developing themes thereby making the interrelationship between plan components the framework for the plan, rather than the individual physical components. Jenkintown is an historic and established community that is mostly built-out. This means that most future development will be focused on adaptive reuse, infill, and restoration. Because the opportunity for growth and expansion is limited within the Borough’s boundaries, the comprehensive plan will focus less on “growth management” strategies and more on “place management” strategies that will emphasize building on the strengths of the community that contribute to creating the desired sense of place and strong quality of life cherished by Jenkintown residents and visitors alike.
Jenkintown2035 Public Outreach
Diverse public outreach strategies were utilized throughout the planning process to ensure that the vision and planning recommendations reflect the community as a whole by hearing from as many individual viewpoints as possible. Appendix A in the Jenkintown2035 Comprehensive Plan includes a detailed public outreach summary.
• Social media outreach (Summer 2015 – ongoing)
• Outreach at community events (Summer – Fall 2015)
• Community survey (Fall 2015)
• Community workshop (October 2015)
• Community visioning survey (Winter 2016)
• Outreach at Jenkintown Festival of the Arts (Fall 2016)
• Public open house (Winter 2017)
• Public meetings to discuss draft plan (Summer 2017 – Spring 2018)
