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7 • Purpose and Scope Because Falcon Heights is part of the seven-county Metropolitan Area, it is required to update its Comprehensive Plan every ten years in accordance with the Mandatory Land Planning Act of 1976. This is the third generation plan to be completed by the City since enactment. The last major update of the Falcon Heights Comprehensive Plan was completed in 1991; a revision was submitted in 2000. The purpose of the Comprehensive Plan is to guide the City in all of its decisions relating to land use, transportation, community facilities, public improvements/investments and intergovernmental relations. It is a body of public policy that defines and promulgates a vision for the future, a vision that will be realized only if public policy is consistently and universally applied. The Comprehensive Plan is a general statement of policy that can be interpreted rather broadly. If too loosely interpreted, it loses its value and is subject to legal challenge. It is dynamic and multidimensional establishing concepts, principals, relationships, patterns and sequencing, while zoning, with which it is frequently confused, is specific, legal, rigid, contemporary grid static. Zoning is merely one of many tools available to implement the City's plans. This plan was prepared in consultation with the Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee in concert with the Planning Commission and City Council and with assistance from City • Staff and Consultants. By statute, the Planning Commission is charged with evaluating all public and private land use, transportation, community facilities and investment proposals to determine their consistency with the Comprehensive Plan's goals, objectives and policies. If proposals do not adhere to planning principals as embodied in the adopted Comprehensive Plan, the Planning Commission may either recommend denial or consider amending its plan. If it considers an amendment to the Comprehensive Plan, the burden of proof must fall to the proposer to demonstrate that the amendment will not be detrimental to the City, the neighborhood or the environment and will not substantially increase the need for publicly financed improvements. Perhaps the one thing that needs most to be remembered is that no decision can be made independently of all others. Since the plan theoretically establishes an optimal balance between land use intensities, street capacities and other natural and cultural systems, an amendment maybe far more complex than maybe immediately apparent. These are the challenges that accrue to a dynamic community and its Planning Commission. • Background: Draft 2 FH Comp Plan 2007 Page 2 of 9