Plan El Paso Needs You: Be Seen; Be Heard

Currently the proposed Plan El Paso, the City’s Comprehensive Plan re-write, is making its way through the final adoption stages. Yet passage is not certain nor is it certain that a few won’t succeed in making the Plan impotent or weaker than it should be. That is why it is so important for us to educate ourselves about the Plan and, as we are able and available, to make the following meetings:

Comprehensive Plan Advisory Committee

Monday, February 20, 2012, 10 a.m. to Noon, 10^th Floor City Hall

City Plan Commission

Thursday, February 23, 2012, 1:30 p.m., 2^nd Floor City Hall

Legislative Review Committee

Thursday, March 1, 2012, 1:30 p.m., 2^nd Floor City Hall

Public Service Board (PSB)

Monday, March 5, 2012, 5:00 p.m. 1154 Hawkins Blvd. (Map)

Not only will they discuss the Comprehensive Plan Re-write (Plan El Paso) but the NW Master Plan/Scenic Corridor issue.

City Council

Tuesday, March 6, 2012, 8:30 a.m., 2^nd Floor City Hall

It is critical that as many of us who care about key environmental, conservation and sustainability issues make these meetings. Turn out is the key. If you cannot attend, please email your comments to Carlos Gallinar, Comprehensive Plan Manager .

Read today’s elpasonaturally post about the number of vacant buildings in El Paso and the loss of population from the Central Core of the City.  That is why it is a source of jubilation and relief when we see that the overall goal of land use patterns in the Comprehensive Plan Re-write, Plan El Paso, encourages "infill development within the existing City over peripheral expansion to conserve environmental resources, spur economic investment, repair social fabric, reduce the cost of providing infrastructure and services, and reclaim abandoned areas."

There are a few, but powerful, adversaries to the Plan from the development industry. Likewise, many suggestions by EPWU staff would weaken the overall Plan while some of their other suggestions seem to bolster it. The Comprehensive Plan Advisory Committee met yesterday and reviewed a number of suggested changes. Efforts are still being made by some to water down the Plan. Once again, it is so important that the CPC and your elected representatives at the Legislative Review Committee (March 1) and City Council (March 6) and members of the PSB, see as many of you as possible.

Who are you? You are probably one of the 4,000 people who visited with Dover Kohl and City Staff members over a period of two years in 100 meetings and 20 hands on  sessions. You speak with your neighbors and email your friends. The 1925 City Plan was written basically by one person – George Kessler, a leading figure in American urban planning. However, along with Dover Kohl and City Staff, the authors of Plan El Paso are YOU. Portions of this Plan have already received recognition form the National Resource Defense Council and the EPA. (Search the NRDC site for “Plan El Paso” – good stuff there to surf and read and watch.) Plan El Paso is a repository of practical, achievable yet a very grand vision for the future of our City.

Here’s what I suggest. It’s easy to hammer away at the adversaries for having a narrow vision driven by profit margins. Just remember, “they” aren’t that many people. Also keep in mind  that the development industry has some good ideas when it comes to getting park credits (which they don’t get from the Parks and Recreation Director now) for preserving our hillsides and arroyos. We should work with them here. 

Rather than a focus on the negative and outdated ideas of a very few, let’s stress the positive.  Show up and/or email and keep your comments positive: the Plan encourages infill over sprawl. It encourages preserving our green and natural open spaces. It proposes neighborhoods where you are near to parks and shops and work and where you are connected to your neighbors – where you have community. It “incentivizes development projects of exemplary location and design throughout the City.” It calls for revitalizing downtown. It calls for us to be the most sustainable, walkable, livable and least automobile-dependent City in the Southwest. And, it  sets a goal for us to “provide community services and facilities that meet the physical, educational, and recreational needs of all segments of the City’s community.” Imagine connected, affordable, quality neighborhoods for El Paso. Plan El Paso plans for prosperity, the preservation and usefulness of our historic areas, sets a goal to improve our overall health and quality of life, seeks to protect our environment and the plants and animals of our region all the while building a prosperous, International City.

It is easy to think in narrow terms of profit margins and personal gain and to see everything around us as a commodity. On the other hand, it is far more enriching to see not commodities but relationships: relationships with each other, relationships in community, relationships with all other people around the nation and the world. Relationships with the land, with our mountains and our desert, with the animals and plants and their habitats. Relationships. Really this is what living is all about. People not bottom lines. Instead of the world seen as a commodity, the world seen for what it is: a beautiful commonwealth of all life.