Introduction
Project Purpose
The Miami Township Comprehensive Plan is designed to guide the
Township’s future growth, development, and enhancement by providing
a clear statement of the community’s preferred future
characteristics. The Plan provides a foundation for the community’s
future decisions by helping the community understand its existing
conditions and likely future events, recognize and establish its
Vision, evaluate its opportunities for reaching that Vision, and
develop the tools necessary to implement the recommendations resulting
from that Vision.
Miami Township has evolved over the late 20th and early 21st centuries
from a largely rural Township to a suburban community that includes a
wide cross-section of residential, commercial and industrial
developments. The Township has experienced significant population
growth in recent decades, resulting in both new residents and parks
and new pressures on the features that attracted many residents to the
community. To protect and maintain the community’s unique character
in the face of these local and regional pressures, it is vital for the
Township and its residents to:
•
Accurately understand its physical conditions, current issues and
probable future trends;
•
Clearly articulate the characteristics of the community that residents
want to live in into the future; and
•
Evaluate and select the land use planning and land use management
tools that will help the community achieve
these goals to the greatest extent possible.
This Plan was designed to meet these needs.
Planning Process
The Miami Township Comprehensive Plan was initiated by the Township
Trustees in June 2004. The process began with the selection of a
consultant team and the appointment by the Trustees of a Steering
Committee to guide the Plan’s development. The Steering Committee’s
membership consisted of citizens of the Township, many of whom also
represented neighborhood or local community organizations, local
businesses and local organizations. These participants were joined by
Township and County elected officials and Township staff. The Steering
Committee was responsible for reviewing the community’s existing
conditions and public feedback, formulating the Plan Vision, and
participating in the development of Plan elements that fit the
community’s needs.
The work program for the Miami Township Comprehensive Plan (Figure
1) involved several elements, including the following:
•
Regular working meetings with the Steering Committee
•
Participation in a series of preference and priority feedback
activities
•
Review of the results of the public survey and public feedback events
held in September 2004 and January 2005
•
The development of a Vision statement that provides a clear policy
foundation for the Plan
•
The development of a series of Goals to further refine the Vision
statement into built environment characteristics;
•
The review and revision of the Preferred Development Strategies and
Preferred Land Use Plan, including map
and text revisions;
•
The review and development of additional policy strategies relating to
potential development regulations,
transportation improvements and other strategies
•
The development of a system of prioritization for the existing
Township Pathways plan;
•
The development of an Implementation Strategy, and
•
The creation of a draft and final Comprehensive Plan document
Public Participation and Feedback Activities.
In addition to working with the Steering Committee throughout the
process, the Miami Township Comprehensive Plan benefited from an
extensive array of public feedback opportunities throughout the
process. The Plan’s major public participation initiatives are
summarized below; additional information is available in the
Supplemental Appendix to this Plan.
• At the beginning of the Plan process, the Township established a web
site within the Township web site focusing on
the Comprehensive Plan.
The web site contained two primary sections: a public section
accessible from links on
other pages within the Township site that
provided meeting information and finalized Plan elements, and an
additional
site that allowed Steering Committee participants to
download materials for review in advance of meetings.
• On September 23, 2004, the Plan process commenced with a public open
house at the Township Administration
building. Attendees had the
opportunity to review a series of existing conditions maps, learn
about the major goals of
the Plan and the expected process, and
participate in a priority survey and a community SWOT analysis.
• In October 2004, a survey of issues and priorities were mailed to all
residents in the Township through the Township’s
quarterly
newsletter. This two-page survey asked residents to answer the
following questions:
What do you think is the most important issue facing the Township
today?
Which of the following changes in Township policy would you support?
What is Miami Township’s greatest strength?
Why
do you live in Miami Township?
What else do you want to tell the Township?
The first four questions above asked the respondent to select from a
list of potential responses and/or write in their
own. The last
question was open-ended. The Township received nearly 300 returned
surveys. The results of the survey
were compiled and presented to the
Steering Committee and Township officials and were published in the
Township
newsletter.
• During Fall 2004, the Consultant staff completed key person interviews
with eight Miami Township residents and
stakeholders to gain more
detailed insight into the Township’s issues and potential needs.
Interviewees were selected
by Township officials and staff, and
included neighborhood association leaders, participants in former
planning
initiatives, elected officials, leaders of community
organizations, developers and business owners. The results of these
interviews were summarized and provided to the Steering Committee.
• On January 11, 2005, the Township hosted a Vision Open House at the
Lemming House. Attendees at the
Vision Open House were invited to review the results of the October
newsletter survey and participate in a wide
variety of feedback actives. These included the following:
o A Visual Preference Survey, which gave participants the opportunity
to review photographs of a wide variety of
types of land use and development design and specify their preferences
on a numerical scale.
o A Scenario Quiz, which gave participants the opportunity to review a
series of realistic development review
scenarios, such as the Township Trustees or Zoning Commission might
encounter, and then specify how they
would respond if they were serving in one of those positions.
o An activity entitled “Which Do You Prefer?” This station gave
participants the opportunity to select from an
assortment of photographs and paste on a board the ones that
represented types of land use and design that
they wished to see in the community;
o A cognitive mapping board, which provided a base map with landmarks
and invited participants to mark their
ideas on the map.
During their January meeting, the Steering Committee also participated
in the same activities. The results of all of these feedback items
were summarized and compared, and the results provided to the Steering
Committee and officials and posted to the Plan web site.
The information gathered from these initiatives played a pivotal role
in developing the Plan’s Vision and Goals and evaluating plan
options.
[2] Existing Conditions