What is a Comprehensive Plan?

The City of Andover is currently undergoing a project to update its comprehensive plan. A comprehensive plan provides the basis for making decisions in a community. It works to define a community’s goals and its aspirations for community development. It uses information from previous experiences, current trends, future projections, and the public’s ideas and desires to develop a strategy that will move the community toward its goals. A comprehensive plan forms the basis for policy decisions regarding things like housing, recreation, land use, utilities, and transportation.

The comprehensive plan is a means of community decision making. It is a tool to guide future implementation efforts and offers priorities and guidelines for public investments. It is only when the community acts upon the priorities described that the plan is implemented. Through the comprehensive plan update process, Andover’s public investments can be evaluated and prioritized. The plan does not try to replace market forces, rather it tries to channel and shape market forces by establishing certain rules for land development and resource conservation so that the community’s goals can be achieved.

Updating the Comprehensive Plan

Andover is one of Kansas’s fastest growing cities. When Andover developed its last Comprehensive Development Plan for 2003-2013, the City had 6,690 residents and had seen a 59% increase in population over 1990. From 2000 to 2010, Andover grew by 76% and now has a population of 11,791. The Wichita Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (WAMPO) forecasts that Andover’s population in 2035 will be 17,870.

Large changes in population have an impact on how a city can most effectively function. Now is the time to plan for our community’s future so that we continue to have a thriving city where people want to live, work, learn and play.

What kinds of questions will the plan answer?

· What will be the impact of future residents and where will they live?
· How will Andover’s growing population affect the demand for community services and resources?
· What sort of employment/economic development opportunities will be available or should be incentivized?
· What type of housing products should be encouraged?
· What facilities will these new residents & employers require? Will they be different from those currently
provided?
· What will be the impact on the City’s financial resources?
· Where and how should Andover’s future growth be accommodated? Should the growth move out into the Planning Area? Should it stay within the current boundaries of the city? Should it move north, south, or east?

What's Next?

The Comp Plan document on the left side of the page is the result of the Comprehensive Plan Update Advisory Committee's meetings, study and input. The plan was adopted by the City Council on December 30, 2014.

Thank you to all citizens who took time to provide feedback either through surveys or the website. A special thank you to the Advisory Committee for their many hours of thought and work. If you know any of these individuals, thank them the next time you see them!

Quentin Coon

Lynn Heath

Dennis Bush

Dr. Jackie Vietti

Mary Pendelton

Daryl Thornton

Kevin Dreiling

Jack Ritchie

Carolyn Kaplan

Gary Israel

Mike Thompson

Ben Lawrence

Troy Tabor

Kris Estes

Lori Moody

Dian Lawrence

Brian Lindebak

Jay Mullen

Ruth Ann Messner

Patsy Sphar

Matt Forney

Travis Griffin

Kent Criser