Over the coming year, the Dallas community will prepare a long-range plan describing a common vision of what the City will look like and how we all will live, travel, and come together for jobs, culture, and recreation.
The plan will provide a framework for capital improvements of many kinds, including basic infrastructure, parks and recreation, and economic development investments.
The Dallas Plan was created as a non-profit organization as the result of a unanimous resolution passed by the City Council in August 1992. The plan’s purpose is to formulate a capital improvements strategy and enhance the City’s capital planning process.
The program is chaired by Robert K. Hoffman, president of the Dallas-based Coca-Cola Bottling Group (SW) Inc.
With a budget of $700,000, raised primarily through foundations, Hoffman has assembled a small consulting team for the project, headquartered in City Hall.
What goes into such a plan? Especially one spearheaded by a public-private partnership? At the moment, capital planning in Dallas is a short-range exercise and is not tied to a broader vision. The Dallas Plan, with a horizon extending to the year 2025, will be seeking:
- A strategic growth concept directed toward shaping the future of Dallas;
- Program and project priorities relevant to all neighborhoods and population groups;
- A framework for action by many governmental entities without bias toward any single issue or project;
- An integrated social and physical strategy applicable to every sector of the City;
- A program built on widespread consultation and public involvement for community leadership to weigh carefully and implement expeditiously.
This planning process will help Dallas prepare proposals dealing with our political, social, economic and physical future.
The proposals will include specific suggestions for developing and enhancing the core assets of Dallas, creating identification and sense of place, enhancing neighborhoods and the Downtown area, and generating new commitment to the City.
The process will be open and inclusive. Every Dallas resident must see how his or her values and way of living or working are reflected in this plan. From the outset, the active participation of a committed citizenry will be enlisted in every possible way.
During spring 1993, the Dallas Plan will initiate public discussions throughout the City concerning key questions and issues.
This will lead to generation of “alternative futures” to be considered in community forums during the fall. Thereafter, draft proposals will be discussed with the Council before public release early in 1994.
The results will be used to help shape the next bond election, anticipated for May 1994, and for future bond programs.
The Dallas Plan will succeed to the extent that it generates a continuing constituency, because the Plan’s realization will require numerous steps over many years and even decades.
In that sense, it must be a living concept – an “evergreen plan” – never finished and always evolving in response to the needs and wants of a great City.
