Danville, IN

Comprehensive Plan

 In the 23 years since Danville last prepared a Comprehensive Plan, the population of the community has doubled. Town leadership emphasized the need for a robust public engagement process to ensure the needs of the community were being reflected in the Comprehensive Plan update. This challenge coincided with the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.   

The public engagement process was broken into two phases. Phase 1 included a professionally produced video that invited the community to participate in the planning process, six stakeholder meetings, an interactive online workshop, and an online public input survey. This approach led to over 1,500 online workshop visitors and nearly 1,000 survey responses in a community of 10,559 residents. Phase 2 followed up with an in-person public open house that was attended by 50 participants. This open house was successfully converted into an online format that resulted in over 500 participants. 

The robust public participation resulted in the plan being structured around three key priorities: managing growth, enhancing community character, and improving quality of place. Key to the success of the plan was a scenario-based land use plan that identified infrastructure that needed to be in place prior to development in key areas of Town.