News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
The city of Cookeville’s planning department is looking to update its 2030 land use plan.
The 2030 land use plan is a comprehensive plan for future decisions of the growing city. Planning Director Jon Ward said the department adds data from past studies and evaluates land every 10 years.
“This year, the planning department one of our big work goals,” Ward said. “We have been going through all of our land use seeing how everything has changed. Making sure everything is classified appropriately, and updating any of the background information that we use.”
Ward said the department reviews each parcel and classifies each one as commercial, residential or industrial. 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.
‘We gather information. A lot of this information is already out there, so the planning department we seek out the information that is relative to our city and incorporate that into our planning documents.”
Ward said since 2015, Cookeville has added over 1,500 residential units. With the population growing, Ward said census numbers hold value when decisions for the future are mainly based on the city’s growth.
“We have numbers of how our population has been projected, but until we get that official number to get the census count, we do not know how much we have grown and how to project ourselves moving forward.”
Ward said the department takes the data and numbers from the past 10 years and compare them to past years to see which direction the city is going.
