The Downtown Vision Plan is still a couple of months away from becoming a formalized planning document, but town officials say they are already seeing positive results from the visioning effort.

The Town Council adopted the Vision Plan in September and directed staff to create an Area Specific Plan based on that vision.

Staff is working on that project and it will be back to the council in December, along with the revised General Plan document.

But that kind of begs the questions – just what exactly is an “Area Specific Plan” and how is it used as a planning tool?

Senior Planner Bob Rodgers said the ASP can be viewed as a “mini General Plan.” It adds some additional detail to a specified area of the overall General Plan.

In this case it is a defined downtown area with boundaries that roughly include El Lago Boulevard on the south, Panorama (around Fountain Park) to the east, La Montana Drive on the north and approximately Westby Drive to the west.

The “vision” talks about what types of development should be part of the downtown and where it should go.

The ASP is recognized in the revised General Plan, which will go to voters for formal adoption next May, but it will not be an official part of the General Plan.

The ASP will be included in the General Plan section outlining vision, goals and objectives.

It states that, “the town should recognize the plan for the downtown area prepared by Swaback Partners as an Area Specific Plan.

“This plan will encourage the development of the Town Center that will strengthen the community identity and provide day- and night-time activities.”

The Swaback vision has divided the downtown area into several “districts” including shopping, entertainment, park land and residential, among others.

Currently the area is covered by the Town Center Commercial District (TCCD) and C-2 (commercial office and retail) zoning districts. It is the zoning that lays out the specific regulations for development.

“We will look at these zoning districts to make any changes needed to make them consistent with the Area Specific Plan,” Rodgers said.

The Planning and Zoning Commission will be holding two public hearings on the ASP, and those will be at the same session as hearings for the General Plan revisions.

The first hearing is to be held on Monday, Nov. 30, and the second will be Thursday, Dec. 10.

The public will have the opportunity to make comments on the plan.

Both plans will be before the council for a hearing and consideration for adoption on Thursday, Dec. 17. The General Plan will be on the ballot for voter approval Tuesday, May 18, 2010.

Using the plan

Even though the vision plan has not been formally adopted as an ASP, the tool is already proving useful, according to Lori Gary, Fountain Hills’ economic development coordinator.

Gary said she had the plan, along with preliminary results of a study on the town’s retail trade analysis, at a recent convention for shopping center developers and retailers, and the information was very well received.

Gary said the plan is very useful to focus types of development on a specified area.

For instance, if a developer is looking for a place for retail development, Gary can go to the plan and tell them this is where the town would like to go with that type of development, and here is what is nearby to support it.

The retail trade analysis will tell people just what types of customers are available to Fountain Hills businesses and where they are, Gary said.

Using both tools together, it becomes easier to focus on developers and retailers who will most likely have an interest in Fountain Hills, and they will be successful if they come here.

“We were able to generate interest, and people were very impressed that we knew what we want, where we wanted it, and whether we had the market to support it,” Gary said.

She said they were also impressed that the vision plan was a community-wide effort that has the support of citizens, business and government.

A couple of developers have already visited the community after talking to Gary at the recent conference.

Gary said the current economy has many developers and retailers taking a cautious approach. However, some are using the downtime to plan for the future. She said retailers normally plan three to five years ahead.

Gary said the preparation may pay off for Fountain Hills.

“This will put us a step ahead of others who may have the same market, but don’t have everything in place,” Gary said.

“Our job is to get Fountain Hills near the top of the list for when things turn around.”