Today’s edition will carry a letter to the editor from Clay Zahn. If you haven’t met Clay, he is the fellow working to restore the Davis house, or the Wagner house, or whatever other family name it carries in your recollection. It is a beautiful home, and I believe is one of six Watonga buildings on the National Register of Historic Places. But I digress.
Zahn’s idea is that there needs to be a concentrated effort to move Watonga forward, or maybe backward, to what it used to look like, then forward to what it can and will be. A place with affordable housing, good jobs, industry.
I oppose another do nothing committee. In the past, there were boards and committees that were in name only. Years passed when the planning and zoning board did not meet. The town stagnated.
Recently, since the tenure of City Manager Leroy Alsup began, that and other boards have been revitalized and meet as needed.
That’s a good thing. I wonder, though, if we need to go further. I know people on the P&Z board and know they are working on a comprehensive community plan, a plan that says this kind of thing – like housing – should go here but not here, too close to the airport.
That plan would also outline flood zones, transportation routes that will expand, and potential industrial zones. It is a roadmap to our future.
I know right now it might seem tone deaf to propose a hard look at our future when so many families are hurting, wondering how they are going to get through the next six months, what with the USG plant closure announcement. But things aren’t going to improve on their own.
The P&Z meets as needed in an advisory capacity. It’s time to take the gloves off. I believe it is time to create a new city department, the department of planning and zoning. Code enforcement would also fall under the umbrella, and WEDA – the Watonga Economic Development Authority – should have an office there, too.
And we should poach the most visionary planner we can find and afford to run the whole thing, a person with a proven track record of improving the quality of life in towns through economic and infrastructure development and redevelopment. This person must also have encyclopedic knowledge of laws, legislation and grants, because he or she will have to help the town find the money to pull itself up by the bootstraps.
I don’t believe this will happen this week, or this month, or even this year. I don’t know if it is possible in the next budget year.
But like Mr. Zahn, I believe we need a well thought out comprehensive plan that addresses the needs – and some wants – of the entire community so that our growth is orderly, measured and beneficial to most. Because uncontrolled growth in a body becomes cancer, and uncontrolled growth in a community becomes blight.