Public meeting next week for city comprehensive plan

The city of Graham is inviting residents to help build the future by sharing their ideas for the comprehensive plan under development.

A come-and-go town hall meeting is being held from 5:30-7 p.m. Monday, Nov. 17 at the North Central Texas College multipurpose room at 928 Cherry St. 

The Comprehensive Plan Advisory Committee met Thursday, Oct. 16 and heard from Dalton Aiken and Caitlyn Higgins of Public Management Inc., the grant administrators and planning firm for the project.

“The Texas General Land Office set up a grant program that would allow communities to do these types of comprehensive plans,” City Manager Eric Garretty said. “Their focus is on hazard mitigation and zoning, but there’s a lot of other things that go into a comprehensive plan. But all this work that you see is being funded directly by a $300,000 grant from the (GLO) to do this project.”

A requirement of the GLO grant is two to three town hall meetings, with the first serving as an open house.

The grant awarded to the city had a start date of April 9, 2025 and an end date of June 30, 2028, with Aiken stating that they are not expecting the plan process to take three years. He said the company is seeking to finish the project in around 18-24 months.

A comprehensive plan is a growth and development plan for the city. 

In July, the city council approved forming a Comprehensive Plan Advisory Committee committee to provide input to the city council regarding development of the plan.

The city held a community survey from September through October, with both a digital and paper option available for residents and nonresidents.

The key takeaways from the survey results addressed housing access and affordability, roadway and utility repairs and pursuing growth without compromising the community.

The company stated they will have their planning team available at the town hall with different stations with information from their city studies as well as the community survey results.

“Our firm is very big on being in the community and trying to understand what’s going on, not just from the appraisal district or Census data,” Aiken said. “We drive around every single street, we look at every structure, we categorize the existing land use that way and that’s kind of our assessment. We’ll also look at existing plans and we also have another partner that drives around and looks at all the streets.”