By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Prompted by a question from Hutchinson City Council member Jon Daveline Tuesday, Ryan Hvitlok with the City talked about the work his office has been doing to look at the City's comprehensive plan.
"We have not met with the planning commission in gosh, probably three months, but we do have a meeting starting next week to kind of begin some of that process," Hvitlok said. "One of the things is kind of a longstanding text amendment that we've been looking at with some research and development. It was spurred by Sensor Dynamix over here. Our zoning ordinance looks at research and development as kind of more heavy type uses. Sensor Dynamix showed that we have a great ability to kind of bring some of those more technology-based businesses into our community and when we looked at our ordinance, it just didn't line up. One of the things that we're looking at is expanding it, so that research and development can be in our downtown area, it can be in one of our commercial zones. Genzada's another great example. They really are a research and development company. Previous department heads classified it as office and that was just kind of a way, this was really a use we wanted in the community and we didn't really have the time to go through that process."
The changing economic landscape needs planning that is ready for it and that's going to be a goal in the coming months.
"Okay, what are some things we can do? What are gaps we're having? Where are some things the ordinance might not have anticipated?" Hvitlok asked. "I know we're going to have a lot more of those conversations, because I think the economy is shifting, I think a lot quicker. One of the things about COVID-19 is, I think it kind of hit the fast forward button on a lot of things that were happening in our economy rather slowly and kind of pushed those maybe 5 or 10 years quicker than we thought. You know, looking at things of how retail's going to change and things like that. I anticipate having a very robust conversation with our planning commission here, once we kind of get some of the lag work done that we needed to get done, probably later this summer on, okay, what are some things we can look at in our ordinance and our plans."
An agenda for the next planning commission meeting has not been released.