Welcome
STUDY AREA BASE MAP includes roads, managed areas and major labels are shown. Important to note that it extends further east to capture connected natural areas.
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Imagine Butner in 2040
Peering into the future is a favorite exercise for planners and designers. From the Chicago 1893 Columbian Exhibition to New York City’s two Worlds Fairs (1939 and 1965) and beyond, the future was optimistic and filled with cool technology and architecture. What do we think the future will look like 20 years or so from now? And what will Butner be like in 2040? The quality of our Town's future depends on the choices we make today. The foundation of the Imagine Butner 2040 Comprehensive Plan is the Mapping and Suitability Analysis which is a GIS-based build-out model that estimates potential future growth in the Butner.
What is a Comprehensive Plan? |
Imagine Butner 2040 is the town's comprehensive look at itself. Required by state statute, a Comprehensive Plan is fiscally neutral (basically as fancy way of saying the Plan requires no commitment of funds to implement any part of the Plan).
A Comprehensive plan, may also be known as a general plan, master plan or land-use plan, is a document designed to guide the future actions of a community. It presents a vision for the future, with long-range goals and objectives for all activities that affect the local government. This includes guidance on how to make decisions on public and private land development proposals, the expenditure of public funds, availability of tax policy (tax incentives), cooperative efforts and issues of pressing concern, such as farmland preservation or the rehabilitation of older neighborhoods areas. Most plans are written to provide direction for future activities over a 20-year period after plan adoption. However, plans should receive a considered review and possible update every ten years. In 2009, Butner completed its first Comprehensive Plan. A copy of that plan, the 2020 Butner Comprehensive Plan may be found here.
A community comprehensive plan serves the following functions:
A Comprehensive plan, may also be known as a general plan, master plan or land-use plan, is a document designed to guide the future actions of a community. It presents a vision for the future, with long-range goals and objectives for all activities that affect the local government. This includes guidance on how to make decisions on public and private land development proposals, the expenditure of public funds, availability of tax policy (tax incentives), cooperative efforts and issues of pressing concern, such as farmland preservation or the rehabilitation of older neighborhoods areas. Most plans are written to provide direction for future activities over a 20-year period after plan adoption. However, plans should receive a considered review and possible update every ten years. In 2009, Butner completed its first Comprehensive Plan. A copy of that plan, the 2020 Butner Comprehensive Plan may be found here.
A community comprehensive plan serves the following functions:
- The plan provides continuity. The plan provides continuity across time, and gives successive public bodies a common framework for addressing land-use issues.
- It is the means by which a community can balance competing private interests. John Public may want to store oil drums on his property. Jane Citizen, his neighbor, would like to open a restaurant on her property. Planning seeks to strike a balance among the many competing demands on land by creating development patterns that are orderly and rational, provide the greatest benefits for individuals and the community as a whole and avoid nuisance conflicts between land uses.
- It is the means by which a community can protect public investments. Planning is the means by which a community avoids digging up last year’s new road to lay this year’s new sewer pipe. Well-planned, orderly and phased development patterns are also less expensive for a community to provide with public services than low-density, scattered development.
- It allows communities to plan development in a way that protects valued resources. Planning can identify environmental features like wetlands, agricultural lands, woods and steep slopes and suggest strategies for preserving those resources from destruction or degradation by inappropriate development.
- It provides guidance for shaping the appearance of the community. A plan can set forth policies that foster a distinctive sense of place.
- It promotes economic development. The plan contains valuable information that drives the location decisions of prospective firms.
- It provides justification for decisions. Plans provide a factual and objective basis to support zoning decisions and can be used by communities to defend their decisions if challenged in court.
- Through public dialogue, citizens express a collective vision for the future. Last, but certainly not least, the planning process provides citizens an opportunity to brainstorm, debate and discuss the future of their community. A plan developed through a robust public input process enjoys strong community support. Subsequent decisions that are consistent with the plan’s policies are less likely to become embroiled in public controversy.
“If you don’t know where you are going, you could wind up someplace else.”
Yogi Berra
Why Having a Vision Matters
Historically, visions and master plans may begin as two-dimensional drawings, but they have had little to do with specific architectural styles, land uses, or regulations. These visions ultimately succeed because they recognize the three-dimensional wholeness of a community and the ways the community functions. Often overlooked and frequently disregarded outright, it is the imperative of a community's leaders and planners to consider the three-dimensional framework of a town. If this is done, then the community grows up and becomes timeless.
Great towns were not expensive to build; they grew not in one fell swoop but over time. They incorporate the nature environment into the built environment. Our community's growth can be directly attributed to its proximity to the economic engine of Durham, Raleigh, Research Triangle, and other Triangle assets like North Carolina State University, Duke University and the University of North Carolina.
What are the elements then that come together to make a three-dimensional, great town? First, the seed, or vision must be planted and spring to life in the minds and hearts of citizens. Next, the Town must cultivate an environment for the healthy growth of this entity; it must lay the foundation upon which the private sector can contribute to the healthy development of the Town.
Vision Ingredients Based in Reality...Building a road map for the future we have to consider:
Great towns were not expensive to build; they grew not in one fell swoop but over time. They incorporate the nature environment into the built environment. Our community's growth can be directly attributed to its proximity to the economic engine of Durham, Raleigh, Research Triangle, and other Triangle assets like North Carolina State University, Duke University and the University of North Carolina.
What are the elements then that come together to make a three-dimensional, great town? First, the seed, or vision must be planted and spring to life in the minds and hearts of citizens. Next, the Town must cultivate an environment for the healthy growth of this entity; it must lay the foundation upon which the private sector can contribute to the healthy development of the Town.
Vision Ingredients Based in Reality...Building a road map for the future we have to consider:
- Population growth and changing demographics (i.e. aging population)
- Transportation (i.e. changing technologies, funding limitations, fuel)
- Future transportation plans (i.e. NC Department of Transportation 2025 Plan)
- Development trends (i.e. neo-traditional and mixed-use developments)
- Regional cooperation and public finance (i.e. Knightdale has to compete for funds and is compelled to plan in collaboratively with her neighbors)
- Federal and state regulations (i.e. changes to regulations related to air and water quality affect funding)
- Utilities and public services (where will these be available; should they be available everywhere?)
- Natural features and natural resources (i.e. preservation of significant, sensitive, and threatened natural systems we want to retain)
- What You Told Us (in informal interviews and conversations)
- Visual preference survey (see Appendix for data)
- Public workshops (see Appendix for data)
- Comprehensive and Small Area Plans
- Open Space, Parks, and Greenway Plans
- Transportation Plans for Roads, Bikes, and Pedestrians
- Utilities Master Plans
