The final public hearing on the Town Center vision and code development is at 6:30 p.m. on March 30 at Lakeridge Elementary. It will focus on draft Town Center Comprehensive Plan policies and the draft Development Code amendments.

There will be an open house, followed by a brief presentation at 7:15 p.m. and then a public comment period. Public comments will be limited to three minutes per person. The city also encourages written comments, which may be emailed to: TownCenter@mercergov.org.

Last summer, the city released the Town Center Visioning and Development Code Update Interim Report to the community, reflecting work to date on the next 20-year vision for the development rules that will apply to the Town Center commercial area.

The Planning and Design Commissions are now convening together (known as the “Joint Commission”) for the next phase of work: recommendations for actual Town Center development code language and directly-related updates to the city’s Comprehensive Plan.

The lengthy Town Center visioning process caused the city to delay adoption of its Comprehensive Plan update, which was due last year.

Three public hearings were scheduled to solicit feedback on the Town Center vision and development code updates being considered. Topics at the previous two hearings included retail, parking and building heights.

The City Council is expected to take over the Town Center work in May, getting a first look at the recommended changes at its May 2 and May 16 meetings.