Community Open House

The City of Hastings will hold a community open house 5:30-7 p.m., Tuesday, Sept. 24, at the Hastings Public Library 314 N. Denver Ave., to share the draft plan of the Comprehensive Plan with the community and gather feedback.

“The Comprehensive Development Plan provides guidance for the growth and redevelopment of Hastings,” said Chad Bunger, Development Services Director for the City of Hastings. “We want to inform the community of the plan, its importance, and to make sure we are getting it right.”

The feedback from the community will be used to finalize the plan and get it ready for adoption, which Bunger said will hopefully occur by the end of the year.

“We need to inform the community of the document, get feedback and create the final draft for adoption,” Bunger said.

The City’s consultant team, led by Marvin Planning Consultants, kicked off the “On The Horizon Hastings” comprehensive plan update project in July 2022 to provide the Hastings community with a guiding policy document for future growth and development in our City.

Throughout the project, the Marvin Planning Consultants project team engaged with the community and stakeholders to understand the community’s needs for several topics, including developments, employment, transportation, health care, housing and education.

This is the City’s first comprehensive plan since Imagine Hastings, which was written in 2009.

A good comprehensive plan is created with a mixture of community input and technical expertise from the consultant team, City staff and regional partners.

Nebraska state statutes require that cities adopt a comprehensive plan to establish zoning and subdivision regulations. In addition to being a technical requirement related to some City regulations, a city’s comprehensive plan also gives City leaders, staff, community members, developers and builders directions on where new developments and redevelopments should occur.

Additionally, the comprehensive plan provides policy guidance for items, such as annexation prioritization, zoning and subdivision regulation improvements, community planning and engineering initiatives. These initiatives could be a focus on economic development efforts, providing more affordable housing, new roadway alignments, infrastructure improvements or improving walkability in the community.

Work sessions with the City Council and the Hastings Planning Commission will take place in coming months to discuss the Comprehensive Plan.

Bunger said the adopted policy document will provide the City of Hastings will good direction for the next five to 10 years to help the community plan and grow for the future.