Greensburg leaders launched a website this week aimed at keeping community members apprised of ongoing efforts surrounding the city’s comprehensive plan project.

The site, shapegreensburg.com, provides details related to the project launched last year that will update the city’s 14-year-old comprehensive plan. The site also will give information on neighborhood workshops where community members will have the opportunity to give their input on the project and any improvements needed within the city.

“We want people to tell us about their neighborhood,” Councilman Gregory Mertz, who also is on the project’s steering committee, said in a news release. “We need to know what makes these places great, where are the challenges and what we need to do to make them better.”

Council members in July first decided to move forward with updating the document that will guide decision-making and development through 2040.

The city in September hired Pittsburgh-based Environmental Planning and Design as a consultant.

Overall, the plan will focus on several key elements, including blight mitigation, parks and recreation and citywide systems.

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

To help put the focus on the community, the planning and steering committees grouped the city’s 29 neighborhoods into five neighborhood planning areas.

During the first week of March, April and May, three rounds of neighborhood workshops will be held in each of the planning areas. The workshops will have a different theme each month. March will focus on neighborhoods. The April meetings will center around what can be improved and the May events will discuss first steps. The times and locations of the meetings weren’t released.

The workshops can be attended in-person or virtually.

“Shape Greensburg is a major effort that will enhance quality of life in our city and our region — that’s why we want as many people as possible to participate,” project coordinator Michael Norcini said. “But we want the process to be fun. So we decided to start in our neighborhoods, where residents can imagine the future together while reconnecting after a couple of fairly solitary years.”

The final plan is expected to be adopted by city council in December. Two other documents focused on parks and recreation and blight mitigation will be adopted along with the citywide plan but will have the ability to stand on their own if necessary.

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