Title
Action Plan Briefing
Recommended Action
None; receive briefing on the Action Plan.
Report
Issue:
Staff will provide the Planning Commission with a briefing on the Action Plan.
Staff Contact:
Stacey Ray, Senior Planner, Community Planning and Development, 360.753.8046
Presenter(s):
Stacey Ray, Senior Planner
Background and Analysis:
In 2014, Olympia adopted a new Comprehensive Plan (Plan) with updated goals and policies that reflect our community’s vision. Early in the Imagine Olympia process, the City Council identified a vital next step: ensure the goals and policies become reality and have real “on the ground” impact by creating an Implementation Strategy or Action Plan with performance measures.
In November 2013, the Council Land Use and Environment Committee (LUEC) provided staff with direction to begin work on an Action Plan. An interdepartmental staff team was formed to take what was learned during the Comprehensive Plan update process, Imagine Olympia, and develop a draft Action Plan.
The initial Draft Action Plan was released in April 2015. Throughout the summer, staff sought comments on the draft using a variety of tools and events. A broad range of community members and representatives from diverse interest groups participated, including City Advisory Committees and Commissions, neighborhood representatives, and potential partners for implementation.
Feedback received during the public involvement process provided insights into community interests and priorities; how community members and potential partners viewed the Plan’s purpose; and how the Plan was structures and communicated. Specifically, focus group members stressed the need to have clear connections between the major parts of the Plan, which were the desired outcomes (or goals from the Comprehensive Plan), actions, and performance measures.
After having reviewed the outcomes from the public involvement process, the interdepartmental staff team made significant revisions to the initial draft, including revisiting the structure and developing logic maps to show clearer connections between the actions and the measures. Each of the five Action Areas now included: desired outcomes (from the Comprehensive Plan); strategies and actions for achieving those desired outcomes; and indicators for measuring progress. The performance measures were also more accurately dubbed ‘community indicators,’ which better reflects the role they play in alerting us to areas that need more attention.
This agenda item is to provide Planning Commissioners with an overview of the Action Plan framework that has been accepted by Council; strategies, actions, and indicators that may be of interest; relationships between the Action Plan and planning efforts; and upcoming opportunities for involvement (Attachment A).
The Action Plan framework is available both as a PDF document (Attachment B) and can also be viewed entirely on the City’s Action Plan website (Attachment C).
Neighborhood/Community Interests (if known):
As the framework for identifying near-term City and community-based strategies and actions for implementing the Comprehensive Plan, the Action Plan has board community impacts.
Options:
None at this time; this agenda item is informational only.
Financial Impact:
None; the Action Plan is already a budgeted work item, with all departments annually contributing staff time and other resources to varying degrees.
Attachments:
Annual Update Cycle
Action Plan Framework
Action Plan website hyperlink