VHCA to Consider Master Plan at Monday Meeting

The VHCA will have adoption of the Master Plan on its meeting agenda this Monday April 14. The meeting will be held at the Ponce de Leon Ave. library meeting room at 7 PM. The board will discuss the plan and very likely consider a motion regarding sending the Plan on to the next steps toward formal adoption. The meeting is open to the public and interested parties are encouraged to attend. As we wrap up the process, it’s worth a look back at what the goals of the process were.

The Master Plan was undertaken for several reasons. Part of the reasoning was to give this community (and its various sub-neighborhoods) a better voice in decisions regarding allocations of funding resources that may become available if a bond proposal anticipated for next year is approved. A second reason was to involve citizens in a more conscious and deliberative way in thinking about the interrelated challenges – large and small – that we face in urban design, the environment, development, aesthetics, transportation, planning, parks, schools, and other issues. Decisions in such areas are made continually by local and regional planning agencies, often with very little neighborhood input. The Master Plan was designed as an interactive approach that aspired to both inform citizens about many existing (and overlapping) polices and processes and then invite them to weigh in and suggest new outcomes.

Many months and revisions later, a plan exists that reflects dozens of ideas and arguments (broad and specific) voiced by a wide variety of citizens. Iterative processes sometimes produce surprising outcomes; this one has had its share.  Consensus and broad support was achieved in many areas, but not in all areas.  That, too, should not be a surprise; a community with the width and breadth of ideas found in Virginia-Highland will occasionally disagree.

One part that all citizens might agree on is this: while community-based master plans have both direct and indirect value, they do not have the weight of law.  Whatever values you support and whatever visions you have for this neighborhood – and however many times you voiced them during this process – this plan is not an end in itself.  All current public processes and decision-making opportunities will continue to operate and will need our ongoing participation.   The inclusion or exclusion of a concept in a master plan has little value if its supporters do not continue to advocate for it (or against it, as preferred).

In the course of discussing the plan and in other ongoing contexts – the approaching expansion of Inman Middle School, development along Highland, and residents on Monroe – it has been a pleasure to meet and review these issues with many, many citizens.  Without exception, they have all been courteous, inquisitive, concerned about the neighborhood, thoughtful, and attentive. This specifically includes a number of people who disagreed – sometimes very strongly and very articulately – with some parts of the plan or of city polices that they learned of during the process.

If a secondary by-product of this plan is involving new volunteers in committee and association activities, then that may be the best outcome of all.  Most VHCA work is done at the committee level. Three new board members this year came from a background of other association projects; there is always an opportunity to be involved, and there is no better way to be effective than by being informed, and no better way to be informed and impactful than being involved. We invite and welcome your participation.