The purpose of the Laredo Downtown Master Plan is to provide the City with a blueprint for implementation actions and act as a guide for the City Commission regarding allocation of critical and precious resources. The plan will focus on growth and opportunities where needed and protect the established areas of the City. An important benefit of the plan is the establishment of a set of common goals and priorities – a shared vision for where the community wants to go. A shared vision promotes shared opportunities for the community to participate and work together.
Features
- Stresses public involvement, inter-agency cooperation and city wide inclusivity
- United task force provides direction, leadership and implementation
- Addresses all of the critical elements of the community puzzle (transportation, infrastructure, future land use, urban design, community development, parks, downtown revitalization and sustainable economic development) in an integrated manner
- Common vision for the community’s future
- Specific performance goals and objectives consistent with the community’s vision
- Accountability measures that link performance goals to specific roles and responsibilities and allow management of the plan’s implementation process
- Capital Improvement Plans that spell out specific drainage, water, wastewater, electrical, transportation, and other infrastructure investments and their financing mechanisms
- Institutional changes to facilitate operational synergies between existing institutions
- Codification of the plan through ordinances with threshold criteria that must be met before changes are adopted
- Roadmap for strategic implementation: proactive vs. reactive
- Technical-based economic development program for creating investment, growth and jobs
- Highly qualified consulting team of urban planners, transportation planners, architects, engineers, economists, and public outreach professionals
Benefits
- Focuses on community’s shared goals and priorities – pushing together in the same direction
- Creates greater opportunities for improving quality of life and economic development by prioritizing investments to those that have the greatest potential return on investment
- Increases private and public sector funding opportunities
- Increase likelihood of success for the community’s legislative agendas
- Enhancing, protecting and preserving neighborhoods
- Provides the City with greater opportunities to best meet the community’s needs with the least expenditures
- Greater opportunities for institutional synergies which leads to greater joint benefits with fewer expenditures
- Increase opportunities for tapping new, and increasing the amount available from existing, external funding sources
- Establishes a game plan for attracting industries that will generate the greatest economic development with the least investment and most compatible with the community’s quality of life goals and objectives
- Reduces pressure on need to increasing taxes to meet community’s needs
