POSITIVELY ALTOONA, THE DRAFT CITY OF ALTOONA COMPREHENSIVE PLAN

Over the past two years, the Altoona City Planning Commission prepared this draft comprehensive plan with the help of their consultant, Environmental Planning and Design of Pittsburgh. The non-binding vision, goals and objectives of the plan are based on the opinions expressed by City residents and business owners during an extensive public outreach campaign. This campaign included two separate surveys of nearly 650 City residents, surveys of Penn State Altoona's faculty and students, five neighborhood meetings, two planning charettes and a dozen focus groups involving the City's business community, developers, builders, educators, faith communities, social clubs, authorities and commissions. Thus, the vision, goals and objectives of this plan reflect the will and priorities of the City's residents, business owners and stakeholders. They are also built on an extensive analysis of socioeconomic data and projections. If adopted by Altoona City Council, this draft comprehensive plan, Positively Altoona, will replace the City's existing comprehensive plan, which was adopted in 2000.