Wyoming's new master plan incorporates resident needs

Wyoming [re]Imagined is the city’s new master plan that will help guide Wyoming’s development for the next two decades. The process for creating the plan began over 16 months ago, according to Nicole Hofert, city planner for the City of Wyoming. 

In addition to hiring a consulting group, a 20-person steering committee was created to help guide the creation of the plan and interpret feedback along the way. Community input was essential in the formation of the plan and multiple workshops were held asking for residents’ thoughts on various issues and needs in the city.

Some concerns raised were about affordable housing, an increase in parks and mixed-use, walkable neighborhoods, a pedestrian-friendly downtown, and development of Site 36, a former General Motors plant. From there, smaller workshops of five to 15 residents were formed to help formulate what the future of Wyoming would look like. 

The team also attended small business meetings, visited the senior center, and worked with students to further identify the community’s vision for the future of the city, according to Hofert. 

The consultants found themes in the feedback and the steering committee reviewed its recommendations to make sure they accurately captured public sentiment. Hofert said that they also tried to address themes that perhaps weren’t expressed by residents, but were important to a particular community. An example Hofert offered was in regards to streetscaping. This wasn’t a theme routinely expressed by residents, but it was heard from the business community. 

“We kind of had to weigh sometimes who we were hearing things from and maybe elevate something, even if we only heard it from a certain portion of the community,” says Hofert. 

All of this feedback was used to create a draft of the master plan, which can be found under documents on the Wyoming [re]Imagined website. 

“I think most importantly, what you'll see reflected in the plan is a lot of our residents identified and felt that there were a lot of challenges with housing right now,” says Hofert. “That it was very hard to find affordable housing, or even different types of housing within the community.”

The draft was required to be available for public review for 63 days, which ended October 19. Eight open houses were held during that time period and residents were also able to submit comments and suggestions online or at city hall. 

“We'll research all of this data, document all of it, and take that to the steering committee,” says Hofert. “The steering committee will then make a recommendation on if any changes should be made to this plan or if they want to see the plan progress forward to [the] planning commission for its official review.”

The planning commission will hold a public hearing and adoption before sending a recommendation to the city council, which will then have to adopt the master plan. Stay updated on the process by checking the news and updates for Wyoming [re]Imagined. 

Photos courtesy City of Wyoming.