Greensburg council hires consultant for comprehensive plan

A Pittsburgh-based company will help Greensburg city leaders update their 14-year-old comprehensive plan.

Environmental Planning and Design, which is working with the city to renovate Spring Avenue Park in the 5th Ward, was unanimously hired as a consultant by city council last week at a cost not to exceed $149,910.

“We were very impressed with all the expertise and experience EPD brought to the project, the team they assembled, and the detailed neighborhood-based approach mapped out in their proposal,” Greensburg Planning Director Jeff Raykes said in a news release.

City officials in July issued a request for proposals to help the planning commission produce a user-friendly document that can be used by a variety of public and private stakeholders to guide decision-making and development in the city through the year 2040.

The plan will include several themes to frame the document. Those include eliminating blight; making city government accessible; promoting investment; capitalizing on existing assets like walkability, history, culture, education and recreation; and managing city services.

In addition, two focus areas — parks and recreation, and blight mitigation — will be integrated into the plan, resulting in the development of a Comprehensive Recreation, Park and Open Space Plan and a blight mitigation strategy for the city. Both plans will be adopted alongside the citywide plan, but will have the ability to stand on their own if necessary.

The comprehensive plan will adopt a neighborhood-based approach that includes strategies for improving the quality of neighborhoods with citywide initiatives.

“Our neighborhoods represent the very foundation of this city, and we believe that everybody in our city deserves to live in a great neighborhood,” Mayor Robb Bell said in the release. “It’s this idea that drives our neighborhood-based planning approach for this project.”

Once the city received responses to the request for proposals, a 10-member group made up of people from Greensburg’s planning commission, project steering committee and other community-based organizations and institutions undertook a three-step selection process that took about six weeks to complete.

After choosing Environmental Planning and Design, members of the planning commission during their August meeting advanced a recommendation to city council.

In all, the city secured $150,000 for the comprehensive plan project including a mix of funds from a Community Development Block Grant, the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources and city funds. The project is expected to take up to 18 months to complete, with an expected adoption date planned for December 2022.

Discussions regarding the comprehensive plan will begin at the 2021 Welcome Event, scheduled for Friday at the Pitt and Penn Parking Lot. During the event, the consultant team and staff planners will host a table to talk with attendees about the project. Plans for Spring Avenue Park in the city’s 5th Ward will also be on display at the event.

Other neighborhood-focused events will be scheduled for the coming months.