Bloomington, IN* -- Mayor Mark Kruzan announced the kickoff of ImagineBloomington, the process that will update the City's Growth Policies Plan (GPP). ImagineBloomington will ask Bloomington residents and stakeholders to look toward the future and help develop a new vision addressing important planning issues for the City. The update of the GPP is a multi-year effort designed to reflect the community's goals, values and aspirations. Public involvement will be key to the ImagineBloomington visioning process. Once established, the new vision will be used as a foundation for future decisions concerning a wide range of land use, development and planning policy issues for the community. The Growth Policies Plan, which is the City's current comprehensive plan, was last updated 10 years ago, making this the perfect time to assess progress and seek input on the future direction of Bloomington.
"ImagineBloomington is a unique and exciting opportunity for Bloomington citizens to play an integral role in defining the future of our community's planning ideals," Kruzan said. "This is a chance for us to create a common vision for Bloomington and start working together to achieve it."
ImagineBloomington will begin with a series of public workshops in locations throughout the community, with the kickoff event scheduled for 7p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 21 at the Monroe County Public Library, Room 1B. The goal of these workshops is to gather feedback from the public in order to craft a future vision for Bloomington. There are 10 workshops scheduled for this phase of the process, and members of the public are encouraged to attend the one that best fits their schedule. Since all of the workshops will have the same format and content, there is no need to attend more than one. All workshops will start at 7p.m. and end at 8:30p.m. The full schedule is as follows:
Tuesday, February 21, Monroe County Public Library, Bloomington, Room 1B
Thursday, March 1, Bloomington High School North, Large Group Room
Tuesday, March 6, Highland Park Elementary School, Cafeteria
Thursday, March 8, University Elementary School, Cafeteria
Monday, March 19, Batchelor Middle School, Auditorium
Wednesday, March 21, Binford Elementary School, Auditorium
Tuesday, March 27, Tri-North Middle School, Auditorium
Thursday, March 29, Summit Elementary School, Cafeteria
Monday, April 2, Childs Elementary School, Cafeteria
Wednesday, April 4, Templeton Elementary School, Cafeteria
In addition to the workshops, the City will use a number of innovative input gathering tools to enhance the ImagineBloomington process. There will be a project website, as well as Facebook and Twitter pages. UserVoice, an interactive web forum tool, will be available to foster additional opportunities for public involvement. UserVoice provides a way for people, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, to actively participate in topic discussions, offer feedback, submit ideas and vote on preferred options. Because ImagineBloomington is a civic engagement project, UserVoice has agreed to waive the typical service fees that are associated with the product.
A Steering Committee has been formed to help guide and assist the development of the ImagineBloomington vision statement, which will be presented to both the Plan Commission and City Council for final adoption in late 2012. The vision statement will then be utilized as a framework for updating the Growth Policies Plan, a process that will include continued Steering Committee guidance and further public input opportunities. The updated Growth Policies Plan will be presented to the Plan Commission and City Council for final adoption in late 2014.
For additional information and details regarding ImagineBloomington, or
to utilize the UserVoice interactive tool, please visit
http://www.bloomington.in.gov/imaginebloomington, or contact the
Planning Department at 812.349.3423.
