Vision San Marcos Comprehensive Plan

WHY CI T I ES PLAN A comprehensive plan is a tool that allows a

lends predictability to developers by illustrating

the types of development desired throughout

the city and locates existing and proposed

city to anticipate changes and to guide those

infrastructure. It gives legal backing to ordinances

changes in an effective, orderly manner that is

and development codes while eliminating arbitrary

consistent with the desires of the community. It

or capricious enforcement of these laws. With

directs future development, maps and analyzes

input from the community during the comprehensive

neighborhoods and sensitive areas to be

planning process, the document serves as the

protected and promotes efficient growth of the

record of the city’s long-range vision. In the face of

city. A successful comprehensive plan analyzes

constant change, this is the most important reason

trends and alternatives of growth patterns and

to plan. A comprehensive plan with extensive

directs developments in areas where it is most

community input allows the citizens to determine

suitable based on existing land uses, available

what factors will guide development decisions

infrastructure and environmental factors.

and gives them the opportunity to decide what the

Conversely, a comprehensive plan can also

future of their city will be.

contain strategies for adapting to and/or reversing

population and economic declines.

A comprehensive plan, if properly utilized, acts

as a tool for managing and directing growth,