Cookeville Planning Department To Update 2030 Plan

The Cookeville Planning Commission will study the city’s annual report and program design over the course of the next month.

Planning Director John Ward said that report outlines planning department activities for the next 12 months.

“Now, one of the biggest activities that the planning department will undertake this next year is our 2030 plan,” Ward said. “We’re going to update the plan, but we don’t want to finalize that update until we get the Census numbers. In order to make the appropriate projections on our land use needs, we need to understand how much we’ve grown over the last 10 years.”

As the city waits to receive 2020 Census results, planning department staff will work to gather underlying data for the 2030 plan. Ward said that involves taking a re-inventory of land use and conducting a transportation analysis.

“That’s one of our biggest goals to get done. This plan is what drives decision making within the city,” Ward said. “I doesn’t do the planning any justice to finalize it until we get the census results.”

Planning commissioners voted to take up the annual report and program design for study during Monday night’s meeting. A vote to approve that report will likely take place during next month’s meeting.

Ward said the city likely won’t adopt an update to the 2030 plan until 2021. The last update to the 2030 plan occurred in 2010.