05/08/2007: "Rosario Master Plan Approval...Almost, Soon…"

There will be one More Public Hearing On the Rosario Master Plan: the County Council (CC) has approved, in principle, a final draft Rosario Master Plan. On Tuesday, the CC made minor changes suggested by County Prosecuting Attorney (PA) and the Community Development and Planning department (CD&PD), with Councilman Lichter opposed, but in the end all agreed to forward the document to the offices of the CP & CD&PD, so that the those changes can be incorporated into a final draft ordinance.

The draft ordinance will then be made available to the public for review, and yet another public hearing. After the public hearing, the CC will once again enter into deliberations, and assuming that no substantial changes are made as a result of public input or arguments by the council members, the CC will vote to approve, or deny, the proposed ordinance that will approve the Plan.

Given the amount of discussion and review of the Plan (Previous Story) , it is almost certain that the next public hearing will lead to approval of the ordinance; and after seven years of work and review, there will be an approved Rosario Master Plan.

Of course, as always in land used decisions, there will be an appeal period, but once again, given the exhaustive review of the plan by attorneys and professional planners, both for the County and for Rosario, it is unlikely that an appeal would uncover some fundamental error that could send the Plan back to the County for further review. But then again….