By Billy Donati
RATON— A good crowd of interested residents attended the City of Raton’s first public meeting to update the City of Raton Comprehensive Plan on Tuesday, March 3 at the Raton Convention Center.
The current plan had not been updated since 2003, and the meeting was the first of three public meetings in the process that would lead to adoption of a plan, hopefully by this October or November. The meeting was facilitated by Jackie Fishman and her associates from Consensus Planning, an Albuquerque design, planning and architecture firm, which actually helped develop the current plan 17 years ago and which was contracted by The City of Raton for the update.
City Manager Scott Berry opened the meeting by saying this was a chance for citizens to give their input on the process and introduced Fishman who began the presentation by saying they were currently helping both Union County and the Town of Clayton among other projects. Fishman said they had already done some research including an existing land use survey, which found there’s a great deal of vacant land within the City to be utilized. The Plan Elements would include; Economic Development, Housing and Neighborhoods, Infrastructure, Transportation, Community Facilities and Services, Hazard Mitigation and the Implementation.
The Plan also includes a Community Survey that was handed out to those in attendance and has been online since February and will be up till March 25th. Fishman said there were 163 respondents as of Tuesday morning and 61% listed the quality of life in Raton either excellent or good. When asked what the favorite aspect of Raton was, 29% said that being close to family was the top choice and 20% was location.
Asked about local amenities that you or members of your family currently use, 93% said Sugarite Canyon and 70% listed The Shuler.
In Growth and Development, 90% responded that Raton does not have adequate commercial retail or business services and Fishman said it was somewhat unusual that 44% strongly agreed or agreed that downtown Raton was a fun place to visit, shop and walk around while 53% disagreed or strongly disagreed. 95% felt that Tourism was extremely important to Raton.
The crowd then broke up into three separate groups to discuss four different questions including, 1. What would you tell someone who was thinking about moving to Raton? 2. What are the top three aspects about Raton that should be preserved for the future? 3. What are the top three aspects of Raton that should be changed or improved? 4. In 2040 how would you now describe Raton to someone who has never been here and was thinking about moving here?
Next in the planning process is to develop goals, objectives and land use scenarios now thru May when the second public meeting will be held.
As part of this planning process, everyone is encouraged to participate in the community survey that will provide
the direction in preparing the Comprehensive Plan. All residents are encouraged to take the survey
online at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/RatonPlan
For more information, please contact Scott Berry (City Manager) at 575.445.9551,
sberry@cityofraton.com or Jackie Fishman (Principal with Consensus Planning) at
505.764.9801, fishman@consensusplanning.com.
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