Engaging in New Albany’s Future

City works on strategic plan

Are we maintaining the right balance of land uses? Do we have enough trails and interconnectivity? How do we continue to attract industry and jobs? Are we embracing culture, education and wellness?

These are the kinds of questions we are asking as part of the 2012 New Albany Strategic Plan process and we invite you to actively participate in the discussion.

Since its adoption in 1998, our strategic plan has served to reinforce the importance of preserving our cultural and architectural character, protecting our greenways, fostering job growth, encouraging sustainable development, and enhancing the Village Center – our physical and emotional core.

We’ve come a long way in just 14 years. When the plan was first adopted, the New Albany Business Park was a vision in a cornfield. Today, the park is a diverse mix of industries representing $1.2 billion in private investment, 12,000 jobs and more than $100 million in community income tax revenues.

Our community focus on the Village Center produced a library, the McCoy Center for the Arts, commercial and residential projects that brought about new retail and restaurant options, and beautification projects that help to create a welcoming and pedestrian-friendly mixeduse core.

We solidified our commitment to green space, devoting 13 percent of our entire land use for this purpose. Most New Albany homes are within a quarter mile of a park, our neighborhoods are connected to the Village Center and business park through an extensive leisure trail system, and we have taken steps to preserve and enhance natural assets like the Rose Run corridor.

During the past 14 years, we’ve experienced balanced growth and applied a 1.17 unit per acre benchmark for residential development. Our current housing density of 0.38 units per acre when all land uses are considered is an unmatched residential standard compared to Dublin (1.03), Powell (1.15), Hilliard (1.20), Worthington (1.56), Gahanna (1.70), Westerville (1.81), Upper Arlington (2.23) and Bexley (3.11).

But life is about what’s next and we need to collectively consider what we want our community to be and look like in future decades. To facilitate this, we divided our strategic planning process into multiple elements that include land use, transportation, economic development, open space and parks, sustainability, and community design. All of these elements play a key role in connecting people physically and emotionally to New Albany.

During these next few months, reflect on what you love about New Albany. Take a walk or bike ride. Explore our neighbor- hoods. Go to a McCoy Center program. Walk along the Rose Run Creek to hear the wildlife. Have an ice cream cone on the green in front of the library.

Whatever you do to feel more connected to your community, take the opportunity to allow yourself to dream and participate in this process. Follow local media coverage, attend an upcoming City Council meeting later this year when the plan is on the agenda or review the special “Strategic Plan” portion of our website at www.newalbanyohio.org and contribute your own ideas through the section’s “Question of the Week.” We look forward to hearing from you.

Kathryn Meyer is deputy director of community development for the city of New Albany. Feedback welcome at laurand@cityscenemediagroup.com.

By Stephan Reed