Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats of the Overall Plans of the City of Sugar Land - Assignment Example

City of Sugar Land, Texas’ Comprehensive Plan 2012 Introduction Comprehensive planning is usually associated with the economic success of communities. It is notable that many communities have used comprehensive plans as a tool for scheduling expansion or decline in their economic well-being. City comprehensive plan are also applicable in addressing the dynamic change and development of a community. The comprehensive plans also indicate the way land spaces available in any community will be put under use. It is important to note that such plans usually attempt to address compatibility issues among various land uses, management and conservation of available natural resources as well as the classification and preservation of historically major land structures. Furthermore, the plans enable a community to visualize the development requirements of their towns such as infrastructural expansion. Indeed, many cities have utilized comprehensive plans to address space requirements for the establishment of schools, recreational facilities, and housing development among others. This paper discusses and summarizes the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of the overall plans of the City of Sugar Land, Texas’ Comprehensive Plan 2012. Discussions “The city of Sugar Land is situated in Fort Bend County 20 miles southwest of downtown Houston was started a sugar plantation in mid 1800s” (City of Sugar Land, 2012). Currently, the city is an operational municipality offering diverse services including fire protection, public utility services, curbside recycling, recreational facilities, infrastructural works, and zoning activities among others. The latest census report indicates that the city is the 49th largest in Texas with a population of 84,511 catering all races (City of Sugar Land, 2012). A manager governs the city. Fire fighting is a major source of employment in Sugar Land city, apparently due to the incidences of fire outbreaks in the sugar cane plantations. The city has a mixed land use pattern mainly including plantations, housing, property development, and public utilities. The percentage of land use is classified as including residential spaces taking up 71.71% of land space, commercial activities takes up 15.97% of land space, and industrial activities take place in 12.32% of the total land space (City of Sugar Land, 2012). “What aspects of the Comprehensive Plan are especially well done, timely, useful, or strategic? What makes them especially important to the future of the community?” The City of Sugar Land Council adopted a new comprehensive plan incorporated as vision 2025 and guiding principles. The comprehensive plan envisions a safe, beautiful, and inclusive community where everyone shows responsiveness to the environment (City of Sugar Land, 2012). The city also boasts of excellent destination centres, impressive neighbourhoods, and a superior infrastructure that caters for easy mobility. The city has indicated in the plan how it seeks to become an outstanding cultural, educational, and recreational centre that offers people an opportunity to enjoy the benefits of nature. Furthermore, the city hopes to attain superiority as a centre of business excellence where development and redevelopment takes into account the economic aspirations of her people. The development of the comprehensive plan took the best approach by ensuring that it borrows from all previous plans. The aspects of the plan that were well done include the parks, recreational areas and open space management strategies. It is notable that the city began experiencing challenges with the way zoning regulations had failed to control annexations into the sensitive ecological spaces. The original parks, recreation and open space master plan of 1996 was again updated to keep up with the pace of development in managing the spaces. The current plan is well done since it has identified the future needs of the city with the expanding population. It has ensured that future acquisition of land, recreational area's development, and expansion programs does not extend into sensitive environmental areas. Indeed, the plan visions that every neighbourhood should have an open space to enable recreational activities. The renaming of the Hike and Bike Trails Master Plan for Pedestrian and Bicycle Master Plan is timely and strategic. This is because its integration into the comprehensive document ensures an inclusive approach to the city development while also broadening its focus to incorporate non-recreational trips. Aside from the superior infrastructural development, the city envisions to ensure that her people enjoy high mobility and encourage the adoption and use of environmentally safe transportation systems. Therefore, with the intention to connect diverse parts of the cities through the provision of routes for both pedestrians and cyclists is timely. The comprehensive plan will make the envisioned developments important for the future of the community as many people engaging in recreational activities will find it easy to run, cycle, and walk in built environment that are less injurious. Updating the Municipal Facilities Master Plans such as the Water Master Plan, and the Waste Water Master Plan is also timely because it ensures expansion of the service delivery structures to cater for the improving user populations. The Wastewater Master Plan inclusion in the comprehensive document is also timely and strategic because it ensures the orderly and appropriate development of structures for the collection of wastewater in the whole city. Furthermore, the anticipated rise in population necessitates a robust wastewater management system, which is important for the future of the community, as it will ensure that public health is guaranteed. “Which aspects of the Comprehensive Plan are weak in your opinion? How could they be improved?” In my opinion, I think that locating the light industries in the outskirts of the city is a good idea because of the emissions that normally emanate from such areas. However, I think the weak aspect of the comprehensive plan is to have the public neighbouring the industrial area. This is dangerous because gas emissions from the industries could be very detrimental to the health of the public. Therefore, I think this aspect of the comprehensive plan can be improved by ensuring that the area neighbouring the industries is covered with forests. This is particularly important because the forests act as a natural sink for industrial gas emissions and help the city reduce the considerable air quality challenges facing the public. This will also help in ensuring that the city promotes eco-friendly manufacturing where waste products are efficiently managed. “Opportunities the community can take advantage of in the future to create a more desirable and prosperous community” The population in the Sugar Land Community has increased steadily since 1990 and this conforms to the global and national growth patterns. There are diverse opportunities that the community can take advantage of moving forward into the future. The city enjoys strong planned communities’ development strategies, which is making a stand out among her neighbours. The communities’ should take advantage of the strong planning of development activities in order to ensure that every aspect of expansion conforms to other structures. This will ensure that the communities remain attractive and desirable for living. The communities should also take advantage of the recreational spaces to encourage healthy lifestyles such as physical activities to reduce disease incidences. Lastly, the communities should also ensure that they offer the younger generation with environmental education in order to guarantee sustainable development in the future. Are there any particular threats that the community could face in the future that should be addressed in future updates to the Comprehensive Plan? The greatest threat the community could face in the future is the increase in population and challenges associated with housing. It is notable that 71.7% of land has been already under residential activities. As the population increases, there would be a need for more space to develop the superior homes while also allowing for recreational spaces. This will become a big challenge because the city may not be able to keep pace with land requirements for housing, agriculture, open spaces, and public utilities among others. Future updates to the comprehensive plan should articulate how additional land will be acquired for the development of the superior housing, which is already the trademark of the city. “Out of a possible score of 10 points (with 10 as the “best” and 0 as the “worst”), how would you rate the overall quality of the Comprehensive Plan” I would rate the overall quality of the comprehensive plan at nine. This is because the plan has envisioned how the city would like in the year 2025 through planned community strategies, which ensures that housing development are superior (City of Sugar Land, 2012). Furthermore, the city ensures that every citizen ensures environmental sensitivity and responsiveness in his or her development endeavours. Public safety has emerged as a core aspect of the plan. It is also notable that the development of the plan was a robust process, which was all-inclusive. Therefore, public participation in the development of the plan enabled it to become peoples’ wellbeing entered while also ensuring the attainment of their economic aspirations. Reference City of Sugar Land. (2012). Sugar Land Comprehensive Plan. Viewed at http://www.sugarlandtx.gov/tlrp/documents/ComprehensivePlan_Chapters1-5_2012_000.pdf on 12th March 2013. Read More