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Facilitating downtown living and working environments among goals of Warren comprehensive plan
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Warren, Trumbull County’s largest city, has an opportunity to attract young adults to live and work in the downtown area.
A comprehensive plan the county’s planning commission will write will help with that.
Trish Nuskievicz, planning commission director, said the three-year project announced this week will put the city in a good position to adjust its zoning to better define the best uses for land.
Among the exciting opportunities are assisting with the development of the “urban core” because young adults across the country are interested in living and working in downtown areas that have a good mix of residential, commercial and employment opportunities.
Warren native Christopher Allen, who is developing the former Packard Electric complex on Dana Street Northeast for his West-Coast Auto Park-it business, has talked to officials about his desire to see downtown areas developed as residential locations for his employees.
Nuskievicz said other companies, likewise, have talked about their desire to see the city move in that direction.
Anthony Kobak, the comprehensive planning coordinator for Trumbull County, wrote the Youngstown 2010 plan when he worked for Youngstown, she noted.
The planning commission has a “team of planners” and has refocused its efforts on planning since Nuskievicz took over the county agency in December 2013. It has written 27 comprehensive plans for communities across the county since 1996.
Warren’s last comprehensive plan was written in 1960, and a city the size of Warren should have an update every five to 10 years. “Twenty years is old,” she said.
The new plan will cost the city $33,000 per year during the plan-writing phase, and the relationship can continue for as many years into the future as necessary.
A comprehensive plan is different from the $180,000 study carried out by the private Poggemeyer Design Group of Bowling Green in 2009 in that the Poggemeyer study was a “neighborhood strategy.”
“Our plan will support zoning by providing a foundation and legal basis for the zoning code,” Nuskievicz said.
“A comprehensive plan can facilitate the most appropriate and efficient uses of land and resources, consistent with the public interest,” she said. “They can accommodate orderly development; ensure the adequacy of transportation, water, sewers, schools, parks, recreation, housing and other services.”
Mayor Doug Franklin said the planning commission is able to provide Warren with planning services “at a fraction of the cost of a private consultant.”
“As the county seat of Trumbull County, the future paths of both the city of Warren and Trumbull County are tied together. The cooperation of local governments is vitally important for our region,” Franklin said.