The North Platte City Council is moving closer to adopting an updated comprehensive development plan and revised zoning regulations as city officials look at how the community should grow in the coming years.
Mayor Brandon Kelliher discussed the council’s recent meeting during his bi-weekly Wednesday interview, highlighting the ongoing work to update the city’s comprehensive development plan, which has been in development for about three and a half years.
The city’s previous comprehensive plan was last updated in 2012.
Kelliher said the plan has undergone extensive review by the City Council, Planning Commission and city staff, including a group that spent months reviewing the document.
A public hearing was held Tuesday to gather additional input before the plan is finalized.`
Kelliher said the goal is to plan for future growth while avoiding conflicts between residential development and uses such as feedlots or industrial facilities.
The mayor also said he wants the comprehensive plan to be more than a document that is completed and then set aside.
The plan includes goals at the end of each chapter, and Kelliher has asked that those goals be organized into a system identifying who should be responsible for them and when they should be addressed.
“If we spend all this effort to create these plans and then we just put it on a shelf, what's going to happen with those plans?” Kelliher said.
Kelliher said the city is also working on a major update to its zoning regulations.
The proposed zoning regulations are designed to be easier for residents to understand, with more charts, graphics and other visual information compared with the city’s existing regulations, which are primarily text-based.
To help compare the old and proposed regulations, city officials used artificial intelligence to analyze the two documents and identify differences.
Kelliher said the AI comparison took about an hour and helped identify provisions in the existing regulations that may need to be carried over into the new regulations. City planning staff then reviewed the comparison.
Kelliher estimated the process may have saved roughly 20 hours of work.
The council is continuing to review both the comprehensive plan and zoning regulations before final action.
The council also took action Tuesday on the final series of bonds associated with the city’s industrial wastewater facility.
Kelliher said the city has issued three series of bonds over the past three years to finance the project. The strategy allowed the city to spread its borrowing over time rather than relying on a single financing package at the end of the project.
The first two bond series carried interest rates about one percentage point lower than the rate expected for the latest series, Kelliher said.
He emphasized that the industrial wastewater facility is paid for by its customers rather than North Platte taxpayers. Sustainable Beef is currently the facility’s only customer.
Kelliher said the city still wanted to be careful with financing costs because higher expenses could affect a major employer in the community.
The project also included about $7 million in bonds for improvements to the city’s municipal wastewater plant, including replacement of its ultraviolet treatment system and other equipment. Kelliher said those improvements were separate from the industrial wastewater facility.
The council also officially designated the name Freedom 250 Trail for a new trail located at 3901 South Buffalo Bill Avenue.
Kelliher said the trail extends from the existing bike trail and crosses the Fremont Slough. The bridge on the trail incorporates steel from the original mall in North Platte.
The loop is slightly more than a half-mile long and includes a paved parking area and sidewalk designed to provide improved access for people using wheelchairs or scooters.
Kelliher said the area is expected to remain primarily a nature park for now, although additional recreational uses, including possible soccer fields, could be considered in the future.