title
Authorization to enter into a contract with Houseal Lavigne to develop the City-wide comprehensive plan
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Department:
Development
A. Issue
City-wide comprehensive plan contract authorization.
B. Background
In November 2022, we issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) for consultants to prepare a new comprehensive plan and received seven proposals in late January 2023. The bid list is attached. Following a criteria-based review of submitted proposals, Development staff conducted in-person interviews with four firms. While all interviewed firms are capable of performing the work, staff selected Houseal Lavigne for their nation-wide comprehensive planning experience and for the additional items they offered, as described below. Houseal Lavigne has worked with more than 400 communities across the country on planning efforts and has won numerous awards, including national and state level American Planning Association awards as well as from the Congress for New Urbanism, and from ESRI for their use of GIS.
The initial fee proposal in response to the RFP was $199,710, within the budget of $200,000, that includes the following scope of work to prepare the comprehensive plan:
• Data gathering and analysis including an orientation tour, department heads meeting, and review of various plan/studies/existing conditions.
• A Plan Commission and Common Council project initiation meeting.
• A public community-wide kick-off meeting.
• Regular meetings with staff and the Plan Commission/steering committee.
• Community education including project Branding and Collateral.
• Up to twelve key stakeholder interviews or focus groups.
• One business community workshop.
• Do it yourself kits for public engagement.
• A project website.
• An online public input survey and map-based engagement mapping tool.
• Two community visioning workshops.
• Up to four community open houses to review the draft plan document.
• Presenting the draft plan to the Plan Commission, Community Affairs Committee/Common Council. In addition to the scope identified in the RFP, the proposal offered add-on items including:
• Two sub-area plans - proposed for the west side of the City with three catalytic site concepts per sub-area.
• An interactive executive plan summary with an ArcGIS StoryMap.
• A zoning code audit that will provide zoning update recommendations for consistency with the adopted plan.
The additional items increased the fee proposal to $283,823, or an additional $84,113. Staff recommends including these items as part of the contract due to the time and cost efficiencies it provides as opposed to undertaking separately at a later date.
C. Strategic Plan (Area of Focus)
Priority 4: Housing; Goal 3. Update the Comprehensive Plan and the Zoning Code.
D. Fiscal Impact
The price is $283,823. Funding for the comprehensive plan in the amount of $100,000 was included in the 2023 Planning Division budget ($50,000) and Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) allocation ($50,000). The same allocation will be requested for 2024. An additional $50,000 of existing CDBG administration funds can be repurposed for the comprehensive plan, leaving a 2025 Planning Division budget request of $33,823 to fund the plan with the proposed scope.
E. Recommendation
Staff recommends authorization to enter into a contract with Houseal Lavigne to develop the City-wide comprehensive plan in the amount not to exceed $283,823, including a Level Three fund transfer for the additional CDBG funds.