Rochester Hills looks to residents to help guide city into the future

ROCHESTER HILLS — Residents can help shape the new vision for the city of Rochester Hills for the next five years, officials said.

The city is in the process of updating its master plan and is once again asking the community what the future of Rochester Hills should look like.

Mayor Bryan Barnett said a master plan is a blueprint, or a roadmap, for how the community should evolve and how it should develop.

“A master plan is about guiding development in the city in a way that enhances the experiences of residents,” he said in a statement. “Of course it needs to be sustainable, resilient and age friendly, and while our community is largely built out, we still have some vacant parcels, along with some properties that are ready to be redeveloped and even modernized.”

The city’s last full master plan was completed in 2007, and it was updated in 2013 and again in 2018.

The long-range document will help guide policy and decision-making about how land is used for housing, transportation, commerce and recreation over the next 10 to 15 years.

In talking with many residents over the past year, Barnett said, one of the main things he heard was that many people are “concerned, interested and certainly want their voices heard about the pace of development in the city.”

The community’s feedback in the master plan process, he said, will help drive the policies that the city’s zoning ordinance and development regulations are based on.

Sara Roediger, the city’s planning and economic development director, said that throughout the master plan process — led by the city’s Planning Commission, with support from the city’s Planning and Economic Development Department over the next year and a half — there will be many opportunities for residents to share their thoughts, ideas and concerns.

“We have a lot of opportunities for public involvement,” she said.

The first phase of the master plan updating process kicked off in January with a review of the 2018 plan, workshops, visioning and a market analysis. The first phase runs through March.

The city is also currently fine-tuning a 20-question survey for residents and business owners to complete online to share their input. Roediger said the survey, which will be available on the city’s master plan update website by April 1, focuses on all major aspects of the city — in terms of housing, transportation, land use and more — and should take about 10 minutes to complete. The survey will be available online until the end of April.

Rather than only exploring the almost 33-square miles of Rochester Hills at a large-scale, Roediger said this planning process will also focus on smaller areas within the city. Using the high school district boundaries within the city as “planning neighborhoods,” she said, gives people the opportunities to think about how their subdivisions, schools, community facilities and commercial businesses are connected.

The city plans to meet with homeowners association presidents throughout the city to get additional input over the coming months.

“We’re trying to really get a more neighborhood-level input, instead of citywide,” Roediger explained. “We’re trying to get neighborhood-specific recommendations, because what the residents up on Dutton care about isn’t necessarily what the residents down on South care about.”

State law requires a municipality to review and update its master plan every five years.

“We always take a look at it to make sure the recommendations are still relevant and if there are any major changes or priorities in the community. Really, the idea is that the master plan should be our guide for all the decisions that we make,” said Roediger.

City officials said the format of the master plan update itself will also be unique in that it will be primarily an online, interactive “story map” intended to allow residents, business owners and visitors to explore the city’s vision. The highlights of the plan will also be captured in an executive summary PDF for a more traditional reading experience.

“We’re hoping to have it done by next summer,” Roediger added.

Additional master plan updates will be provided via the city’s website and social media outlets. For more information, visit www.RochesterHills.org/MasterPlanUpdate or contact Sara Roediger at roedigers@rochesterhills.org.