InstantnewsBellaire.com

After celebrating last month at the passage of the new Bellaire Comprehensive Plan, members of the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission are already turning their eyes towards the next steps.

Without changes to the city’s zoning ordinances, none of the plan’s grand visions for downtown and commercial redevelopment have a chance of becoming reality. Commissioners know they must make significant changes, and at a meeting on Dec. 8 they decided to hold a workshop in January to begin discussions about just how to go about making those changes.

“I think it’s important that we kind of move forward on this thing,” said Commission Chair Bill Thorogood.

The city’s representative from Kendig Keast Collaborative, which helped develop the Comprehensive Plan, is working on a review of all city ordinances that relate to items in the plan. The commission will receive that report on Jan. 12, and it plans to waste no time in figuring out how to implement changes.

Commissioners decided they will hold a workshop on Jan. 12 at 6 p.m. to discuss the issue.

“We just need to be flexible enough that if we get a new direction from council, we can change,” said Commissioner Andrew Friedberg. Friedberg is actually competing for a council seat in Saturday’s runoff election.