Jennifer Rigby encouraged those who attended a recent public meeting to use their imaginations.

“Think 25 years from now: What do I want my community to look like?” said Rigby, long range planner in New Hanover County’s Planning & Inspections Department, as she spoke to 19 people at the Feb. 3 Plan NHC public meeting.

The session, held at Ogden Elementary School, focused on collecting input for the county's first Comprehensive Plan, and much of the time was devoted to giving residents the opportunity to make suggestions and ask questions of planning staff members. The meeting was the third of seven the county has scheduled through Feb. 23 as part of the Plan NHC initiative.

“As you circle around and look at these maps, don’t be restricted by what is currently on the ground but think about what could be on the ground,” Rigby said at the meeting, referring to historical and proposed county maps on display around the room.

Describing the significance of the Comprehensive Plan, Rigby said, “This is a plan for the next 25 years, a critical document for our county. It helps us identify our goals and our values and then how we want to accomplish those goals through development.”

Although suggestions for the Comprehensive Plan can be what dreams are made of, the reality for developers will come when the county uses the document to revamp its decades-old zoning ordinances.

“We value their input,” said Sam Burgess, senior planner, when asked about why planners would want members of the business community to attend Plan NHC meetings. “There are a lot of people in this community who have ideas that staff doesn’t even think about.”

Population estimates using 2010 Census figures predict an increase of more than 130,000 residents for the county by 2040, Rigby said.

“We as a community have to figure out where all these people are going to go, where are they going to work, where are their kids going to go to school and how we are going to accommodate them,” she said.

The county’s draft future land use map, one of those on display at the Plan NHC meetings, is color-coded to show desired “place types”: commerce center, employment center, general residential, urban mixed use, community mixed use, agriculture and conservation.  

Place types “are not zoning classifications, and it’s very important to understand the difference,” Rigby explained at the meeting. “Place types describe the desired character and function of different types of development that collectively make a community. Place types can help all of us visualize future growth and guide land use, transportation, housing and economic development activities.”

Elaborating on the general residential place type, Rigby said, “In addition to housing in general residential, we’re showing a little bit of mixed use and office, and the reason we’re showing that is because we’ve heard from individuals that a corner store that you could walk to and get a gallon of milk would be great, or a coffee shop or some small retail operation would be helpful in a sea of residential.”

The county’s Comprehensive Plan is on track to be complete by this summer, Rigby said, and depending on when or if elected officials approve the document, the staff could begin developing zoning ordinances as early as the fall.

The next Plan NHC meetings will be held 5-6:30 p.m. Feb. 10 at Murray Middle School, 655 Halyburton Memorial Parkway; 6:30-7:30 p.m. Feb. 12 at Eaton Elementary School, 6701 Gordon Road; 5-6:30 p.m. Feb. 17 at Myrtle Grove Middle, 901 Piner Road; and 5-6:30 p.m. Feb. 23 at Wrightsboro Elementary, 2716 Castle Hayne Road. Residents can also email comments to [email protected].