Comprehensive Plan Update

City of Hendersonville Hendersonville, NC I. Purpose & Background The City's current Comprehensive Plan was adopted in 2009 and was envisioned as a twenty-year plan. While changes to the Zoning Ordinance were adopted following the implementation of the Comprehensive Plan, the strategies & actions suggested for implementing the goals of the Comprehensive Plan more broadly have a mixed record of implementation to date. The City of Hendersonville is seeking proposals from qualified, experienced professional consultants who will assist the City in updating and rebuilding the City's current 2030 Comprehensive Plan. The update is intended to build on the foundation of the 2030 Comprehensive Plan, while updating the policy framework therein to achieve sustainable growth over a 25-year planning horizon. One targeted goal of the revision of the 2030 Comprehensive Plan will be to document and revisit unaccomplished goals and strategies to determine which of those are still relevant and which are no longer relevant. The expectation is that this will also reveal additional Goals, Strategies and Actions within the existing categories addressed by the 2030 Comprehensive Plan and suggest additional categories for inclusion within the document. The primary outcome of this effort will be renewing the City's collective commitment to the policy goals established within the 2030 Comprehensive Plan and their relationship with and influence on City Ordinances. The consultant(s) awarded this contract will have the primary responsibility of developing the 2045 Comprehensive Plan document, to include facilitating and supporting public engagement. The consultant will work most closely with the Planning Board and Community Development Department, but will also be interacting with stakeholder groups, City Council and others as the process requires. A secondary outcome of the 2030 Comprehensive Plan rewrite is to establish a new District and Neighborhoods chapter which would provide an overview of the neighborhood & district level implications of the broader citywide guidance found in the 2045 Comprehensive Plan. This chapter might include for example, primary transportation corridors within a neighborhood along with potential improvements to those corridors, areas where the neighborhood might see targeted larger development and a general overview of any neighborhood wide changes, for example missing middle housing changes, etc. Like most cities, Hendersonville is a collection of residential neighborhoods and commercial districts which have a variety of characteristics, we believe it is important that the 2045 Comprehensive Plan reflect this reality along with developing some indication of what future impacts within and around those areas will look like. A tertiary outcome of the 2030 Comprehensive Plan rewrite is to establish a new Economic and Community Development chapter which would provide a vision for the growth of our local economy. This would include an overview of what drives our local economy today and how we can facilitate the health and growth of that economy moving forward. Of particular note on the commercial property side are our historic downtown area, the Ecusta Rail Trail Corridor, the Medical District, our entrance corridors, including Routes 64, 25, 225 & 191 and some of the burgeoning industrial sites within our jurisdiction. Targeted goals and strategies for the City to move into an active role in facilitating economic development throughout the community is a highly desirable outcome of this effort. Finally, we have a number of targeted efforts which we would like proposers to include as "add alternates" to the core 2045 Comprehensive Plan proposal. While we see the preceding three outcomes as essential elements of the overall project we would like responding consultants to provide budget costs as separate line items for the following more detailed studies. Downtown Historic Commercial District Master Plan: This addendum to the Comprehensive Plan would reflect a more robust level of detail for our historic downtown area, to include the Main Street and Seventh Avenue corridors. We envision a near master plan level of, while also recognizing the limitations of combining the effort with the larger 2045 Comprehensive Plan. Transportation Plan: Recognizing that the Future Land Use Map will designate Freeways, Boulevards, Major and Minor Thoroughfares and Local Streets, this addendum would explore the characteristics of these corridors and reflect a more robust level of detail for these corridors as linear elements within the Comprehensive Plan which, at times connect and pass through our various residential and commercial districts. Detailed design features of these corridors, zoning ordinance recommendations for overlay districts, complete street approaches etc. and other design specific recommendations for our transportation infrastructure would be reflected in this plan. Zoning Ordinance Revisions: It is expected that a variety of the Goals, Strategies and Recommendations of the Comprehensive Plan will necessitate revisions to our Zoning Ordinance. This targeted add alternate would be a proposal for the zoning text rewrite for alignment with the Comprehensive Plan. The exact details of what this would include are somewhat difficult to pin down with out having competed the Comprehensive Plan work, but could include changes to Zoning District Standards, Form Based Standards, overlay districts, missing middle housing revisions, etc. Each of these efforts would follow from the work accomplished in the Comprehensive Plan process itself. We are relying on firms to infer from their experience the potential requirements of these types of efforts in concert with a Comprehensive Plan effort. Creative approaches to these projects and their relationship with the 2045 Comprehensive Plan are encouraged. The contract will be awarded to the vendor deemed to have submitted the best overall proposal on the basis of the factors included in this RFQ. This service is intended for use by the city's Community Development Department(s) for the previously described purpose above. The City may cancel this RFQ or reject proposals at any time prior to an award and is not required to furnish a statement of the reason why a particular proposal was not deemed to be the most advantageous. The award document will be a contract incorporating by reference all the requirements, items, and conditions of the RFQ. The City of Hendersonville reserves the right to reject any and all submissions. The Community Development Department Director will serve as the point of contact for implementation. II. Procurement Process 2.A Timeline/Schedule Release of RFQ: August 2, 2022 Deadline for Vendor Questions: August 24, 2022 RFQ Due Date: August 31, 2022 Anticipated Award Date: October 6, 2022 (City Council Meeting) Request Type Deadline Request Type RFP Deadline Wednesday, August 31, 2022 Contact Information Website https://www.hendersonvillenc.gov/sites/default/files/uploads/rfp/rfp_231200001_comprehensive_master_plan_update.pdf Contact Email lholloway@hvlnc.gov