The College Area Community Council (CACC) voted unanimously Nov. 13 to approve a community plan the group initiated and had been working on for the past two years. The plan will serve as a guide for the city’s planning department as it works on an official College Area Community Plan Update, set to begin in early 2020.

Although the plan is now approved, the CACC voted to release it to the public for comments that will be added to the report before it is sent to the city. The council also voted to include an executive summary of the report that was prepared by Mike Jenkins, a member of the steering committee that spearheaded the community update project.

The report, which was mostly put together by SDSU urban planning students with guidance by the steering committee, was generally well received by the council.

“I think it reads well,” said CACC president Jose Reynoso. “There was a lot of back and forth, there were a lot of sections that were either eliminated or changed and so I think what you got is a more cohesive and better thought-out report.” 

Board member Ellen Bevier described the report as “inspired in places and really informative.”

CACC secretary Ann Cottrell liked the report but was “discouraged” there wasn’t more suggestions for added park space in College Area. 

The board was unanimous in the suggestion to accept more public comments on the report before submitting it to the planning department.

“Even though this has been publicized for two years or more, nobody has seen the contents of the final report so it should be put out to the public,” Reynoso said.

CACC board member and College Area Business District president Jim Schneider said the report “shows the community actually coming together” because it was created by a multitude of stakeholders like the CACC, the city planning department and SDSU. Schneider said the plan reflects what the community wants for College Area, but added that pressure must be put on the city planning department as it develops the official plan update.

“I think we need to push the whole idea of this being developed by the community in the community for the community, not by the planning department and shoved down our throats,” he said. “Just because we got the document done and we give it to city planning, we as a board and we as a community have to continue to push.”

Board member Bob Higdon described the report as a “good logical next step” to the current College Area Community Plan, which was created in 1989.

“[The new report] forms a framework, but I think it goes beyond that,” he said. “There are some excellent ideas and I have a feeling the community will be happy with those ideas once they read and understand and I certainly encourage everyone get involved and read the report and see exactly the vision that I feel we’ve put together as a community.”

A copy of the report will be uploaded to the CACC website — collegearea.org — on Nov. 29, the Friday after Thanksgiving, Reynoso said, and comments will be accepted for a month before being synthesized into a final draft that will be sent to the city planning department. 

—Reach editor Jeff Clemetson at [email protected].