What's our vision for the future?

How do we want Salem to grow and develop? What goals do we have? How can we improve our community?

The City is in the midst of a multi-year project to update the Salem Area Comprehensive Plan, which guides development in the Salem area. This is a big project, so it has been broken into phases.

The City has wrapped up the first phase and is now starting community-wide visioning. During the summer of 2019, City staff will be out and about, starting a community conversation about future growth and development in Salem. What thoughts, concerns, and ideas does the community have for the future?

The City expects to conduct community-wide visioning throughout 2019 and into 2020.  This will include a variety of public engagement activities, including public workshops, outreach at community events, stakeholder interviews, surveys, and more.

Sign up to get email updates about the project and learn about opportunities to get involved.

March Public Workshops

Join us in March for a public workshop on the Our Salem project to see and evaluate different options for how Salem could grow in the future. 

• Monday, March 16: 6-8 p.m., Court Street Christian Church, 1699 Court Street NE
• Tuesday, March 17: 11:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m., Courthouse Square Building, 555 Court Street NE
• Tuesday, March 17 (in Spanish only in collaboration with Enlace): 6-8 p.m., McKay High School, 2440 Lancaster Drive NE

The general content of each of the workshops will be the same.

Fall Public Workshops and Online Mapping Results

Thank you to everyone who participated in our public workshops and online mapping exercises in the fall. You can check out the results online . You can also view the presentation slides or watch a recording of the presentations online.

What did we do in the first phase?

The first phase, Our Salem: Today, focused on examining the existing conditions of the city – our vital signs – and evaluating difference scenarios for how Salem could grow under current policies. Check out this story map to see what we did and what we learned.

The first phase resulted in a report card that evaluates whether we're heading in the right direction given current policies. It also resulted in a greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory. All this work is informing critical discussions and decisions about future growth in the city.

Stakeholder Advisory Committee

A stakeholder advisory committee is advising staff. It has 15 members. The committee consists of Salem officials and representatives from partner jurisdictions, neighborhood associations, and organizations with which collaboration and coordination is critical to the success of the Our Salem project.

• Elected officials: The committee includes two Salem City Councilors appointed by the Mayor, two Salem Planning Commissioners appointed by the Planning Commission President, and one elected official each from Keizer, Marion County, and Polk County. The officials from Keizer and the two counties were selected by their own jurisdiction. We have included them because this project covers Salem's portion of the urban growth boundary, which goes beyond Salem city limits. Changes to the Comprehensive Plan impact the broader area, so coordination is important, and in some cases, required. 

• Neighborhood associations: Land use chairs from three neighborhood associations are on the committee. The neighborhoods are located in southeast, northeast, and inner portions of Salem. These are areas that are not represented by the two City Councilors on the committee, which generally represent West Salem and South Salem. We selected the neighborhood representatives to try to achieve geographical representation in the city after the Councilors were selected.

• Agencies and organizations: The committee includes representatives from several agencies and organizations, including Cherriots, the Salem Area Chamber of Commerce, the Home Builders Association of Marion and Polk Counties, Salem 350, and Enlace Cross Cultural Community Development Project. Most of the representatives were selected by their own organization or agency.

The committee is a non-voting committee. It provides a forum to understand differences and shared values among the participants for mutual gains. The public will be invited to attend and participate in all committee meetings.

Technical Advisory Committee

A technical advisory committee is also advising staff. The committee has 15 members. The committee includes staff from City of Salem departments, area jurisdictions, and partner agencies.

The committee will provide technical expertise on project deliverables and guidance on work tasks. The committee is responsible for representing and relaying information about the project to their respective City departments, jurisdictions, or agencies. The committee is expected to meet twice during the first phase of the Our Salem project.  

You

There are many different ways you can participate in the community-wide visioning phase of the Our Salem project. We will host public workshops, have tables at community events, conduct stakeholder interviews, send out surveys, and partner with local organizations.

If you want us to attend your neighborhood or organization’s meeting or event, please contact Eunice Kim at [email protected] or 503-540-2308.  You can also sign up to get project updates via email.

Consultants

A consultant team led by Fregonese Associates is providing technical expertise.

What is the Comprehensive Plan?

The Comprehensive Plan is a long-range plan for future growth and development in the Salem area that aims to meet the needs of current and future residents.

The plan has goals, policies, and maps that shape everything from where multifamily housing is built to how our street system is designed to how our natural resources are protected.

Simply put, it represents the community's vision for future growth.

Why is the City doing this project?

The community identified a need to develop a vision for growth and development as part of the strategic planning process in 2017.

The Comprehensive Plan has not been updated altogether in decades. It may not reflect the community's vision for the future. This project is an opportunity to better understand Salem and how the community wants to grow over the next couple decades.

The City Council approved funding for this project in 2017.

What happened during the first phase of the project?

A lot happened but not visioning. The first phase focused on data, indicators, and scenarios.

• Data: We worked with a consultant team and others to collect and analyze information related to the built environment. This included looking at our housing stock, parks, jobs and businesses, development patterns, streets, and more. We also completed a greenhouse gas inventory to better understand the community's impact on the environment.

• Indicators: Using all of this data and input from the community, measures – or indicators – were selected to evaluate the current state of Salem. We answered questions like: How livable are our neighborhoods? How strong is our economy? How sustainable is our community? Indicators included things like housing affordability, proximity to parks, average wages, tree canopy, and bicycle and pedestrian use.

• Scenarios: Once we knew how we were doing now, we created different scenarios for how Salem could grow over the next 20 years under current policies. We used the same indicators to evaluate and compare these future scenarios. We created a report card to help answer the question: Are we headed in the right direction?

The results of the first phase of work will inform the next phase, community-wide visioning.

If phase one – Our Salem: Today – did not include visioning, what decisions were made during the first phase?

There were two decision points during phase one. At both of these points, we asked the public for input.

1. What indicators should we use to evaluate the city? We asked the community to select indicators to evaluate Salem as it is today and as it could be in the future under our existing policies.
   
2. Given the results of the analysis, is Salem heading in the right direction? At the end of this first phase, we brought the results of the evaluation to the community and City Council. The results were in the format of a report card and helped answer the question:  Are we heading in the right direction?

Is the City developing a climate action plan as part of this project?

No.

The 2017 Strategic Plan recommends developing a climate action plan, but was not funded as part of the Our Salem project. The City Council voted in June 2019 to provide $50,000 for work on a climate action plan.

• Greenhouse gas inventory: The City developed a greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory, as called for in the 2018 Council Policy Agenda. This inventory was incorporated into the first phase of the Our Salem project. We did this because the built environment – buildings, related transportation networks, etc. – affects GHG emissions, and the results of a GHG inventory can and should inform larger discussions about how and where Salem should grow in the future.

• Goals and policies: We expect to update the goals and policies of the Comprehensive Plan as part of the Our Salem project. The GHG inventory will help us understand how the updated goals and policies impact GHG emissions. Environmental actions that are not related to the built environment fall outside of the purview of the Comprehensive Plan.

Project phases 

What we've learned 

​Our Salem Report Card