UMVRDC

Comprehensive Planning

A comprehensive plan is a tool that can provide guidance on how to best to use city resources. Comprehensive Plans are a way for communities to think holistically and long-term, and can focus on topic areas of interest including housing studies, transportation, and future land use.

Comprehensive plans, as vision and policy documents, must remain relatively general and conceptual. The plan is designed as a flexible document that can be updated as conditions change over time.

Group of people at a meeting gathered around a table looking at documents.

Legal Basis for Comprehensive Plans: The State of Minnesota gives its cities the legal authority to regulate land use. The State does not require the creation of comprehensive plans for cities outside of the seven-county metropolitan area. However, it is recognized that a comprehensive plan is a valuable tool that a city can use to express its vision and develop strategies to fulfill that vision. The Municipal Planning Act (Minnesota Statutes Sections 462.351 to 462.364) creates a single, uniform procedure that applies to all cities.

The comprehensive plan provides the legal foundation to enact land use controls and other municipal actions to implement long-term growth and development strategies and regulations. The city’s land use (zoning) ordinances and official zoning map should be updated to conform to the Comprehensive Plan pursuant to adoption.

Examples of Comprehensive Planning efforts:

For more information on comprehensive planning, contact Kristi Fernholz the UMVRDC at 320-289.1981 ext. 106.