The Department of Planning and Natural Resources’ “Comprehensive Land and Water Use Plan” (USVI Comp Plan) held its third town hall on Thursday evening at the Great Hall on the University of the Virgin Islands Albert Sheen Campus. The town halls were held across the territory in June. The plan aims to share the future vision for the U.S. Virgin Islands and provide a roadmap to achieve it.
“Tonight’s town hall is aimed at getting your input on our draft Comprehensive Land and Water Use Plan before we finalize and send it to the 35th Legislature,” said DPNR Commissioner Jean-Pierre Oriol.
Oriol began the town hall meeting by providing a brief overview of the plan and its objectives for the year. This was followed by a series of round-robin discussions and tabletop exercises to gather feedback on the drafted plan.
“When we first came back to you in February/March last year, the very first thing that we asked was, ‘What was important to you?”’ said Oriol.
Oriol indicated that the second town hall also addressed significant issues at a high level. Community members were asked, “What are the issues that must be addressed?” and provided their input.
Oriol mentioned that by the third meeting in November, based on the input received from the first two town halls, DPNR was able to develop guiding principles, policies, direction, and strategies.
Each island was provided with a conceptual drawing or a schematic of what the neighborhoods would look like based on the policies and principles that were created.
“It is important to note that this is our road map, this is the visioning statement. This is our document, our policy document that is going to give us the direction that we want to go. This by itself is not a regulatory document,” Oriol said.
The plan is distinct in that DPNR begins with the foundation document and then provides a timeline for updating the other components.
Oriol said that common themes heard across the territory have been no more spot zoning, the two-tier permitting system isn’t working, more local control over land use decisions, capacity/accountability for local government to enforce the law, protect guts/beach/shoreline access and preservation, protect groundwater/drinking water, set standards for competing water uses, diversify the local economy and re-orient tourism, and make it easier to walk and bike.
The contents of the plan include “Making Better Land & Water Use Decisions,” “Protecting our Natural Resources,” “Preparing for a More Sustainable Future,” and “Living and Thriving Together.”
“From these themes we then created a number of goals,” Oriol explained.
“Our goals then go to policies and those policies then have strategies or action items for how we would get from our goal to our sustainable future,” he said.
Once the draft is presented to the Legislature, if approved, DPNR will begin the process of making some of the regulatory updates and changes necessary to align with the goals, policies, and strategies in the newly adopted plan.
The community has the opportunity for the next 30 days to provide comments about the plan by clicking here.
Related Links:
St. John Residents Respond to Proposed Land and Water Use Plan
St. Thomas Community Gathers for Comprehensive Land and Water Use Plan Town Hall
