ALBEMARLE — With a new Comprehensive Land Use Plan, officially called Envision Albemarle 2045, beginning to take shape, the city hosted an open house on Tuesday night to gather community input.
The drop-in, two-hour event at the E.E. Waddell Center was meant to foster dialogue between city officials and local residents while also defining Albemarle’s objectives for a hypothetical city landscape two decades from now.
“We need a plan that helps manage change in a way that benefits all residents,” said Kevin Robinson, Albemarle’s planning and development director. “That’s why the [planning department] is asking for our community’s help in building our new Comprehensive Land Use Plan. Think of the comprehensive plan as a roadmap to the future. You can help us navigate where we want to go.”
After additional meetings in the future with the community and among a steering committee, the city is aiming to get the plan adopted next fall.
Robinson added that the plan will take into consideration all aspects of the city that go into development and land use, including economic development, transportation, infrastructure, public services, resources, schools and more.
He noted that after a few decades of stagnation, Albemarle is now seeing major growth and the side effects that come with it.
“You’ve got a generation of people here that are not used to seeing growth the way those cities do,” Robinson said. “Now it’s come, it’s here, and we’re seeing it, and it’s a little bit overwhelming. But we can handle it. This is what we’re doing these plans for. We want to be smart about it and we want to think about what we’re doing with it.”
At the Envision Albemarle 2045 open house, attendees were able to walk throughout the E.E. Waddell Center lobby and chat with planners and organizers connected to the land use plan.
Along with informational graphs and educational charts to view, tables throughout the lobby also featured blank spots for sticky notes from residents, highlighting the Albemarle Planning and Development Department’s goal to take in real feedback from the people who make up the city.
“The good thing about (the open house) is that the outcome helps the city parlay into policy and help shape it in the future, making those decisions about how we’re going to grow,” Albemarle City Manager Todd Clark said.
One notable visual located at the event was a detailed Albemarle community map, where 20 different neighborhoods were identified with the later intent of scheduling meetings containing a few of the neighborhoods at a time.
“We’re going to have that in this plan, and then hopefully in five to 10 years in between, my staff will actually go out and we’ll do smaller scale plans in each of those communities that are localized,” Robinson said.
Albemarle’s residents are encouraged to complete the Comprehensive Land Use Plan Survey, which is available at albemarlenc.gov/future. To promote involvement, all participants who finish the survey by Dec. 31, 2024, will have four chances to win a $100 gift card.