News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Cookeville City Planner Jon Ward said the 2030 land use plan is almost ready to be reviewed by the city’s planning commission.
“We have had to update a lot of additional data,” Ward said. “The NRCS (Natural Resources Conservation Service) guys they actually changed soil classifications, so we could not just reuse the old soil analyst for the plan. So, we have been doing a lot of the background work.”
The 2030 land use plan is a comprehensive plan for future decisions of the growing city. Ward said once final census numbers come in, the city will hold public hearings regarding the updates.
“We can not finalize anything until we get our census numbers,” Ward said. “You look at where you have been the past 10 years and in order to project what you will need in the next 20, you need your population numbers to know how you have grown and how the population will project in the future.”
Since 2015, Cookeville has added over 1,500 residential units. Ward said the department is focusing on how much land should be designated residential and commercial to support the growing population.
“Cookeville has been growing at a pretty decent pace over the past decade,” Ward said. “It is time to take a look at it. We need to start seeing how much land are we going to need to have devoted to residential Are we going to need to increase densities. What are we going to need commercial to support a growing population.”
The department takes data from the past 10 years and compares them to past years to see which direction the city is going. During the past 10 years, the city has undertook multiple major projects adding to and changing land use. In 2017, a major street plan update. In 2018, a parking utilization study. In 2019, a pedestrian and bicycle circulation plan.
