The Town of Edgewood is preparing its new comprehensive plan based on feedback gathered during a community survey and a series of public meetings.
Every five years, the town establishes a comprehensive plan that acts as a guide for future community development based on the community’s needs. The town’s last comprehensive plan was adopted January 2020 and the current plan is on track to be completed by 2025.
“We contracted with Consensus Planning, which is a planning entity that does comp plans for communities around the state of New Mexico,” said Brad Hill, manager of the Planning and Zoning Department. “They made suggestions as to what questions they typically see on a comp plan and what we’re looking for to meet our statutory requirements. It was a collaboration between our Steering Committee, public meeting and Consensus Planning.”
The Planning and Zoning Department conducted an online community survey and held a public meeting in January to review the results submitted by Edgewood residents. The survey had demographic questions and asked whether residents think the town’s visual appearance should be improved, what they think prevents economic development and the most important housing issue the town faces.
Of 341 participants, 283 agreed that the town’s visual appearance needs improvement. Most people said the town should improve substandard or nuisance properties. Residents also said infrastructure and water availability discourage economic development, and affordability is the most important issue when it comes to housing.
“What we’re looking at is where do we want to do housing development, what kind of densities do we want to have, how do we maintain one of the big things that people in Edgewood always want? I think it’s kind of our culture, is we like the open space,” Hill said. “So, how do we meet that and still create housing opportunities for the middle class and working people?”
Hill said the survey is one of several resources the town uses to craft the comprehensive plan. The next step is completing a draft of what the town wants to propose as the land use guidelines for the comprehensive plan. That draft will then be presented to the Steering Committee for review and at a public meeting to gather community input.
A date for the public meeting has yet to be set. Hill said the town will hold a series of public meetings through October to collect public input and promote community awareness.