Design team hired
Laura Bond, Reporter
07-20-2009
Ruston officials are stepping up efforts to create a vision for the city’s future by hiring an international planning and design firm.
As part of Ruston 21 — a comprehensive master plan launched in 2008 — a team from Sasaki Associates is meeting with community leaders and local merchants to solicit feedback on what priority changes need to be made within the community.
Right now, the emphasis is on what Ruston 21 organizers are calling the “community core area,” which encompasses the downtown and university areas, as well as portions of south and east Ruston.
“The core is the heart and soul of Ruston which holds its civic treasures and its future,” Ruston 21 project consultant Ken Tipton said. “It holds long-standing businesses, a university, historic neighborhoods and community gathering places. If people spread out and abandon the core of a community, we’re left with a doughnut. We want to assure the long-term vitality of our core, because communities that have sprawl at a high rate are left without a soul. They sprawl into separate communities with separate individual identities.”
City Development Coordinator Lori Faile said the Sasaki team — which specializes in strategic planning — is trying to gather information that could help determine the area’s future landscape and land use. They will meet with representatives from the Ruston-Lincoln Chamber of Commerce, Lincoln Parish Library, Louisiana Technical College, Louisiana Tech, Louisiana Center for the Blind and area public schools, as well as downtown merchants, to get a feel for the community’s needs and wants. Tipton said the Sasaki interdisciplinary team made up of a landscape architect, urban planner and market and economic analyst will also determine if the community’s vision is feasible.
“Far too often you get master plans that are nothing but pictures, and they never really happen,” Tipton said. “The team does the research to find out if the plan is an achievable reality. You could show too much area allocated for housing or retail that would look nice on paper. But if the population can’t support it, it can’t be reality.”
Tipton said Ruston 21 Community Visioning Day — which generated feedback from more than 400 city residents in November — provided the principles upon which Ruston 21 is to be based. Tipton said this further research is designed to formulate practical strategies based on those principles.
The funding for the Sasaki team comes out of the $350,000 budgeted for the Ruston 21 plan.
The plan is expected to produce multiple outcomes, including new zoning and land use, a direction for economic development and a list of capital improvement projects, along with a source to fund them.
City officials hope the “community roadmap” with these proposals will be ready in early 2010.
__________
Ruston 21 guiding principles
• Preserving the city’s historic and faith-based character
• Building Ruston’s reputation as a leader in higher education, commerce and culture
• Maintaining a balance between growth and small-town feel
• Being a city of opportunity to support a business climate
• Increasing accessibility by exploring transportation plans
• Connecting the community by building economic, civic and communication bridges
• Aiming for excellence by creating a cleaner, safer and more livable community
For more information, go to www.ruston.org/Ruston21.
Other Top Stories
