Oxford and ACP Looking for Ways to Improve Uptown

BY: BETSY SINN
September 26, 2007

On Wednesday Oxford kicked off an effort to update the city’s Comprehensive Plan, introducing the community to the Development Project Team and Steering Committee.

The city hired ACP Visioning and Planning of Columbus to guide the revision. According to its Web site, the firm’s “methodology - linking public participation and strategic implementation - is based on nearly 20 years of expertise in community visioning.” ACP uses public involvement to develop plans, and garner support to implement them.

“The purpose of these meetings and this process is to look and see where Oxford is going as far as development and see if that’s the direction where the committee and community members want Oxford to be going. Then, we can make some deliberate decisions about what actions we want to take,” said Jamie Greene, a founding principal of ACP.

ACP is aiding the Steering Committee and Project team in organizing a plan that will guide development in Oxford for the next 10 to 20 years. The plan will guide City Council and Zoning Commission as they evaluate the location, quality, and scope of proposed public and private developments.

“We have all of these ideas about where we think Oxford is going as far as population and development, but it will be interesting once the study is done to see where we actually are realistically. I’m looking forward to the information and seeing the facts that Jamie and Aaron put together for us,” said Prue Dana, vice-mayor and Steering Committee member.

ACP will assess different development elements in Oxford in revising the 10 year Comprehensive Plan. Among them are housing, economics, land use, governance, urban design, utilities, implementations, Miami University and community issues, natural resources and community facilities and services.

“We give these issues a lot of lip service but we have got to start doing something about them now,” said Paul Brady, Steering Committee member and Planning Commission chair.

“The plan will then be implemented over time through many distinct decisions including rezoning, subdivision of land, location and construction of public improvements,” said Aaron Domini, the ACP planner assigned to Oxford.

Oxford’s plan update is divided up into five different phases and is expected to last 13 months.

“This isn’t necessarily a brand new plan. It’s essentially an update from the plans that ACP helped Oxford within the past,” said Kathy Dale, Oxford’s city planner.

“We have to have these updates every 10 years to discuss existing conditions, integrate new technology, replace outdated information and address new planning issues,” said Dale.

Dale and the Steering Committee are currently looking for volunteers to act as facilitators at community update meetings in November.

A potential facilitator can’t be an appointed or elected official, must hold a neutral position while conducting meetings and can volunteer based on their availability. The facilitators would have to go to one of two mandatory training sessions at 5 p.m. Oct. 25 or 8 a.m. Oct. 26. Interested volunteers should contact Kathy Dale at kdale@cityofoxford.org by Oct. 12.

“You don’t have to have experience facilitating meetings to help out. We are really just looking for somebody who is neutral and can keep community members at the meetings on task and on time,” said Dale.

Developing an updated plan requires community involvement, officials stressed.

“The process of planning and implementing will be ineffective if we don’t have community members telling us what they want to see. If they don’t tell us what they want then, they won’t be happy in the end when they don’t get it. This process relies heavily on public input,” said Greene.

Miami students interning for the city are helping recruit volunteers.

“I’m working on getting students involved as facilitators for the Community Update Meetings. I will also be working on improving public awareness to make sure the community knows all about the plan and the meetings to make sure that those who are interested will be able to attend,” said Taylor Graves, a City of Oxford public relations intern and senior mass communications major at Miami.

“Next week I’m going to be getting in touch with the philanthropic chairs of the various sororities and fraternities to see if they could get Greek members involved,” Graves said.

A small group of community members is helping to publicize the upcoming November meetings. They have organized a mass mailing and have placed advertising in all the major Cincinnati TV stations and radio stations, WMUB, and “The Oxford Press,” as well as distributed flyers to area businesses.

“There might be a bit of an overlap in our publicity efforts, but if that gets one more person to come and give their opinion at the meetings then we’ve done our job. We want to make sure everyone in Oxford is aware of our efforts to further develop the city and encourage them to join in on the process,” said Dale.

The publicity team is also meeting with senior and junior government classes at Talawanda High School to encourage those students to become involved. The Steering Committee is interested in what all Oxford residents, young and old, want to see change with future development in Oxford.

“I’m personally really interested in looking at Oxford’s growing Latino and Asian communities. It would be great if we could find ways to diversify our community even further,” said Bill Brewer, a Steering Committee member.

The next Community Update Meetings will be at 9 a.m. Nov. 12 at the Knolls of Oxford and 7 p.m. Nov. 12 at Talawanda Middle School. Onsite babysitting will be available.