Lee County has commissioned the development of a Master Plan, which is being presented to the County Commission in a public hearing Oct. 25.
Wendy Swann, governmental relations coordinator, said the 185-page plan is about controlled growth and the prevention of urban sprawl.
"In layman's terms, the Master Plan is a road map for the county's future," Swann said.
The plan provides a set of policies dealing with existing and future growth in areas such as land use, transportation, community design and housing.
County Administrator Roger Rendleman said it would have been ideal to establish the plan a decade ago, noting that the last census showed a 50 percent growth rate.
How to keep the community from losing its identity is a concern the commission wants to address, Rendleman said.
To ensure citizen involvement in the development of the plan, the Lee County Commission established a planning commission.
Comprised of 11 citizen volunteers, the planning commission held monthly meetings to discuss the Master Plan.
The county commission contracted Goodwyn, Mills and Cawood, an architecture, engineering and planning firm in Birmingham, as the primary consultant in developing the plan.
Swann said there has been significant citizen input.
"They told us what they thought the strengths of the county were and what the needs of the county were," Swann said. "One of the big things was people like the character of some of the small towns, and they really wanted to keep that. They don't want it to turn into a large urban area in the rural areas."
Swann said one of Lee County's key goals is to make sure the county keeps its rural character.
"It helps describe a vision for the long-term development of Lee County and provides a guideline for future development of the county," said Larry Watts, director of community planning for Goodwyn, Mills and Cawood.
Watts said the plan is subject to change based on the public hearing and the County Commission's final approval Oct. 25.
"We don't have to do the public hearing, but we want to," Swann said. "Because this is a citizen plan, we want to give them another shot to look at it and to let us know if there's anything on there that they really don't agree with that we've developed."
Swann said the Master Plan is a living document, which means it can be revised later.
"So, we can go back, and we can revisit, and we can alter it--we can change it around and make it fit better with what is happening at the time."
Justin Steinmann, Auburn's principal planner, said the Master Plan is not a binding plan for the city of Auburn.
"It's a document that we'd look at," Steinmann said, "but our guiding document for the city of Auburn will be our own comprehensive plan."
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