Lafayette County considers adoption of new Comp Plan; city holds public hearing on new zoning code

Published 5:00 am Monday, November 6, 2017

The new Comprehensive Plan could be adopted for Lafayette County on Monday night after more than a year of gathering feedback and examining the growth patterns of the county.

The Lafayette County Board of Supervisors is expected to consider and vote on the Comp Plan at 5 p.m. Monday at the Lafayette County Chancery Building during their regular meeting.

A public hearing was held last month during the Board of Supervisor’s meeting where only one person made comments about the plan and asked a couple of questions.

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More than 35 public meetings have been held in the last year in several areas around the county and during Planning Commission and Board of Supervisor meetings.

The county’s comprehensive plan was last updated in 2008. Slaughter and Associates urban planning group has been working on updating the plan for more than a year.

A Comprehensive Plan is used by cities and counties to establish a future vision for the community, to anticipate future growth and development, and to strategize decisions and resources in response to this growth.

The plan addresses the county’s rapid growth and how county leaders hope to steer that growth over the next several years.

Some of the goals listed in the plan include encouraging affordable housing options; advocate for quality construction and development; protect property values for future growth and assessed values for tax revenue; encourage alternative modes of transportation, alleviate public safety and traffic concerns on existing roads and more.

The plan also includes an amended Future Land Use Plan.

“The current land use plan for Lafayette County would allow anything to happen anywhere with little no regulation at all,” the Comp Plan states. “(The Land Use Plan) identifies policies that will shape how and where development occurs. These policies cannot prevent all negative things or incompatible uses from happening, but hopefully, they will introduce some control and guide future decisions.”

Some of the categories include Agricultural, Residential Estate, Low, Moderate and High-Density Residential; Garden Residential; Manufacturing/Mobile Home Parks; Mixed Site-Built and Manufactured Home Subdivision; Office Commercial; General or Indoor Commercial; Major Thoroughfare Commercial; Industrial, Public Use and Floodplains and Floodways.

The proposed Comprehensive Plan can be read on the county’s website at www.lafayettems.com.

The city of Oxford approved its new Comp Plan, dubbed Vision 2037 last year; however, on Tuesday, during the Oxford Board of Aldermen regular meeting at 5 p.m. at City Hall, a public hearing will be held on the updated Land Development Code and Zoning Map.

The proposed Land Development Code and Zoning Map, along with several other related documents, are available to preview online at the city’s website at http://www.oxfordms.net/land-development-code-and-zoning-map.