The City’s FY2021 budget includes funding for $156,000 to perform a community-wide Civic Master Plan to be drafted by Dover Kohl & Partners (DK&P). DK&P is a nationally recognized planning firm focused on revitalizing traditional towns, building great new places, growing neighborhoods, and fixing sprawl by design. The City selected DK&P in 2020 to serve as the primary consultant for development of the Civic Master Plan. However, due to COVID-19 and the speed at which the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) was moving forward with plans for their State Road 44 resurfacing project, the City proceeded only with the portion of the plan related to SR 44 by allocating $34,000 of the $190,000 total originally proposed for the project.  The remaining portion of the project was put on hold.  As a result, the new total for completion of the Civic Master Plan is $156,000. With travel restrictions soon be lifted, the consultant is now ready to proceed with the remaining portion of the project, completion of the development of the Civic Master Plan.

This Civic Master Plan, once completed, will be the blueprint for development and redevelopment in Crystal River for the next 50 years. This blueprint will be an illustrative plan for the City as well as the framework for a future land development code re-write. This visioning process will include a 5 day “in-person” community “charrette” exercise involving the entire City. A charrette combines creative, intense working sessions with public workshops and open houses. A charrette is a collaborative planning process that harnesses the talents and energies of all interested parties to create and support a master plan that represents transformative community change. 

Approximately one week prior to the community charrette, the consultant will visit the City for two days to meet in person with public officials, city staff, and citizens. This will allow the DK&P team to witness and discuss successful projects completed, goals for this planning effort, and identify concerns both large and small. The visit will provide the team with a preliminary analysis of existing urban design, transportation, infrastructure, parking, green infrastructure, historic sites and buildings, and market conditions as they relate to the primary areas of study, which are:

1. State Road 44 (SR-44) and surrounding neighborhoods (partially completed June 2020)
2. The Community Redevelopment Area (CRA)
3. Shopping center retrofit and redevelopment opportunities and standards
4. City residential housing analysis
5. FEMA flood zone analysis – measures and standards allowing waterfront/city-wide investment

As a reminder, Dover Kohl & Partners and the City previously hosted a three day community charrette from June 1^st to June 3^rd in order to address numerous issues with the proposed State Road 44 resurfacing project. Utilizing the results from this exercise, the City and FDOT reached an agreement for a new plan that will remove concrete medians from the center turn lane, expand the sidewalk on the northern side from five to eight feet, expand both bicycle lanes from four to five feet, and allow for the installation of a full traffic signal at NE 8^th Avenue.

These measures will improve the thoroughfare’s design while also allowing the City the necessary time to pursue alternative routes for the Strategic Intermodal System (SIS) and eventually redesign the thoroughfare in accordance with a “C4-Urban General streetscape” as defined by the FDOT Context Classification System. The City is in possession of a seventy (plus) page “draft plan” that emanated from this process. The intent of the consultant is to incorporate all of the findings into the larger Civic Master Plan document once all activities are completed.

The Civic Master Plan will establish the community’s goals, objectives, and policies for the next half century. This will allow the staff to move forward with redeveloping the City’s land development code, including the specific standards that will shape the City over the upcoming decades. This exercise will be the turning point to make Crystal River the next great waterfront city.