Shenandoah County Comp Plan Update – Public Information Meetings

You may recall that every locality in Virginia is required to prepare a long-range plan that provides direction for policy makers on future actions from housing to transportation to open space and economics. This plan, the comprehensive (comp) plan, is the ultimate guide to growth and development within a community—and every 20 years these plans must be updated. For more on how a comp plan serves a community, read our spring 2020 Ridge and Valley feature “Superheroes Need Good Sidekicks.”

Shenandoah County’s current comp plan, updated in 2019, is set to expire in 2025, but lucky for us, work on a new plan has already been started by a group of volunteers known as the Citizens Advisory Committee (CAC). Chartered in 2006 by the Board of Supervisors, the CAC was tasked with the comp plan’s review and eventual update, as required by state law. The CAC functions as a volunteer subcommittee under the Planning Commission, and it saves the county tens of thousands of dollars of tax revenue each year by completing work that would typically be done by outside planning consultants.

The CAC’s effort to ensure the new comp plan is shaped with broad community input and engagement includes both a community survey and this series of community meetings. You can stay updated about the county’s process by following along on Facebook and signing up for email alerts from the county.

Hope to see you out at one of the meetings!