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of planning. This includes a 2025 System Statement, 2050 Minimum Requirements Checklist, and <br />forecasting including maps and other projections. City staff have met with Metropolitan Council to <br />review the content of these materials. <br />Comprehensive Plans are active guidance documents that are used regularly by cities for routine <br />decision-making. It provides insight into growth, development, and redevelopment in the city and is <br />used on a regional scale for the seven-county Metro area. <br />Comprehensive Plans must meet certain quality expectations and content requirements set by Met <br />Council to fulfill their purpose as local plans within a regional network. Data and content are to be <br />prepared using the same category groups. There are 10 required plan categories that will be the core <br />chapters in the plan: land use, housing, transportation, wastewater, water supply, surface water, parks <br />and trails, climate, natural systems, and implementation. <br />The City drafts its own Comprehensive Plan, which is reviewed by the Met Council and neighboring <br />communities to provide input before final adoption by the City. Met Council’s responsibility is to make <br />comments regarding City alignment with the regional 2050 plan, and that expectations are within scope, <br />but they are not the ones to approve or adopt the City’s plan. The City’s draft plan must be ready for <br />community review by Summer 2028 and adopted by the end of 2028. <br />It is common practice to utilize a consultant to draft Comprehensive Plans. The City previously used a <br />consultant for the 2040 Plan development. Staff and consultants handle the writing and technical <br />aspects of plan development, while a Steering Committee ensures the process stays on track and that <br />consultants’ work remains aligned with the City’s goals. Staff are developing the Request for Proposals <br />(RFP) to seek consultant services and will be open later this year. <br />Attendees of this work session are being brought together to learn what types of community <br />engagement should be incorporated with developing this plan. Some communities wish to include <br />additional subject areas in their Plan beyond the required 10 elements required by Met Council, this <br />may come from individual city priorities or feedback from community. There is a need to balance <br />addressing the required chapters as well as including desired local priorities. The key to this is <br />engagement through the community engagement efforts that the City undertakes. The consultant helps <br />decide from the community feedback provided what is suitable for inclusion in the plan. <br />A summary for each discussion topic/question follows. <br />What type of events from the 2040 Comp Plan does the City want to consider for the 2050 Comp Plan? <br />Overall, the group felt the events from the 2040 plan process had good variety and are advocating for <br />similar mix of events. <br />Municipal stores: Good outcomes and large numbers of participation, due to the volume of people going <br />in and out. <br />Meetings in person: For an event at City Hall participants need to show up, so numbers for participation <br />may be lower. Going out in the community and being among the people (similar to Connect with the <br />Council) shows participants being more actively engaged. Maintaining intentionality in efforts is <br />important. <br />Workshops or tabletop exercises from last time were very helpful and allowed for providing feedback. <br />There were also several regional experts in attendance and allows City to incorporate some big picture <br />9