Community Dialogue Project
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For immediate release – 04/30/2007
Workshops to Foster Community Dialogue
Implementing the Comprehensive Plan the Primary Goal
WOODSTOCK, Va.—Shenandoah Forum announced today that it will sponsor a series of community workshops over the coming months focused on the implementation of the Shenandoah County Comprehensive Plan.
The comprehensive plan, completed in 2005, gathered county residents’ ideas, concerns, and suggestions regarding how the county should grow. Shenandoah Forum hopes to assist the county in meeting the community expectations expressed in the plan through a facilitated dialogue involving citizens and government leaders.
The project—dubbed the Shenandoah Community Dialogue—will be coordinated by an advisory group of county landowners, developers, homebuilders, farmers, and other leaders from all parts of the county, including its six towns.
“Shenandoah Forum’s goal from its inception has been to promote informed, respectful community dialogue within the county so that together we can determine solutions we can all live with,” said Shenandoah Forum Chairman Rosemary H. Wallinger, a resident of Mount Clifton.
Implementing the Comprehensive Plan
“The comprehensive plan is the community's vision statement about what it wants to be in the future, but it does not give the Board of Supervisors the specific land use tools that will be needed to implement that vision,” Strasburg resident John Adamson said, noting the relationship between the plan and this project.
Adamson chairs a citizens advisory committee established by the county to review and update the comprehensive plan on a regular basis and to give an annual report on how well the county’s planning decisions are supporting the county’s vision for its future as articulated in the plan.
“There is a strong consensus among residents about where they want the county to go. This structured dialogue will map out the roads that can get us there,” Adamson said.
The comprehensive plan’s vision statement says, “In the year 2025, Shenandoah County will still be a primarily rural community that protects its natural resources… directs its growth to the towns ensuring its open, agricultural character… maintains moderate growth of a demographically varied population … [and] ensures preservation of its natural beauty and unique, historical character.”
“We feel there is a real need to work towards a common understanding of what tools are available and how they might be used to implement our well-articulated vision,” Wallinger said. “We hope to build on the work of the agricultural task force, the sliding scale zoning committees, and the citizens’ advisory committee to find ways to turn the vision of the comprehensive plan into ordinances and policies.”
The discussions will be facilitated by the Institute for Environmental Negotiation at the University of Virginia. Created in 1981, the Institute has a long history of fostering productive community dialogues. Recent successes include a southern tobacco communities roundtable among tobacco growers, tobacco interest groups, and health advocacy organizations that led to the multi-billion dollar tobacco settlement.
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Shenandoah Forum is a group of Shenandoah County residents that works to foster informed dialogue among diverse interests in the county to address issues of growth and development. Its mission is to ensure the county remains essentially rural, preserves a healthy environment, promotes a sustainable economy, and provides a high quality of life for the people who live here.
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On the web:
Shenandoah Forum:
www.ShenandoahForum.org
Shenandoah County:
www.shenandoahcountyva.us
Comprehensive Plan: www.shenandoahcountyva.us/reportscode/comprehensiveplan/
Institute for Environmental Negotiation:
www.virginia.edu/ien
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