If you didn’t have a chance to attend Decatur’s Strategic Plan “Open House” a couple Saturday’s back, you missed out on some excellent free food and refreshments.  You also missed the chance to get a sneak peak at the city’s 2010 Strategic Plan Goals, along with some very interesting development options for Decatur’s commercial districts.

Now if this were the 1998 Strategic Planning process and you missed the open house, you’d be SOL unless you wanted to make a trip downtown to City Hall.  However, this being the “age of accessibility”, you don’t even have to put any weight on your feet to go over the goals yourself.  You’ll find all four principles and goals after the jump; courtesy of the city and the good people at DecaturNext.  You may notice that many are quite similar to the 2000 goals, but there are a few new ones.  Applaud yourselves for being consistent!

As is mentioned on DecaturNext, the next step in the process will probably be the most interesting to you: coming up with specific projects to meet these goals.  DNext promises meetings in the new year to go over these.  To be sure, the city and consultants probably already have an extensive list of potential projects from the roundtables early this year, but take a look and feel free to reiterate what sort of projects you’d like to see under specific goals on the list.

For example, under Goal A2, I would probably suggest something like – provide a financial incentive to attract a grocery store/co-op to downtown Decatur.

Principle A: Manage growth while retaining character.

Accommodate commercial and residential growth while retaining a small town character within an urban environment.

Goal 1 Retain and enhance the character of existing commercial districts.

Goal 2 Encourage a diversity of business types with particular focus on small businesses and businesses that provide daily needs.

Goal 3 Protect existing neighborhoods while promoting growth in desired areas and adopting standards that guide future growth.

Goal 4 Protect and encourage the reuse of historic buildings, structures, and places.

Principle B: Encourage a diverse and engaged community.

Protect and expand diversity among Decatur residents, businesses, and visitors while promoting an innovative, engaged, and informed community.

Goal 5 Maintain and encourage diversity of race, ethnicity, income, culture, age, family type, and other kinds of diversity.

Goal 6 Strengthen communication and involvement in and among neighborhoods, city government, institutions, community organizations, and Decatur as a whole.

Goal 7 Support and expand programs, services, events, and opportunities that respond to diverse interests, encourage community interaction, and promote a stronger sense of community.

Goal 8 Promote a culture of creative innovation and expression.

Principle C: Serve as good stewards of all community resources.

Practice fiscal, environmental, and organizational stewardship to make efficient use of finite resources through collaboration and conservation.

Goal 9 Expand and diversify the city’s property tax base.

Goal 10 Continue to provide quality services within fiscal limits acceptable to the community.

Goal 11 Assure the efficient use of all community facilities by strengthening public-private partnerships throughout the city.

Goal 12 Foster environmental sustainability in all aspects of city life and government practice.

Principle D: Create a healthy, lifelong community.

Assure that housing, mobility, and support services exist to provide everyone at every age a high quality of life.

Goal 13 Enhance mobility options within and to Decatur.

Goal 14 Expand the variety of high quality housing options to meet the needs of a diverse community.

Goal 15 Provide programs and services that support and enhance a safe, healthy, and active lifestyle.