The primary purpose of the Town of Marlinton Comprehensive Plan is to provide guidance to the community over the next 10-15 years. The plan is a good resource to understand where a community has been, where it is now, and where it wants to go. The West Virginia State Code also states that “a comprehensive plan must promote the health, safety, morals, order, convenience, prosperity and general welfare of the inhabitants, as well as efficiency and economy in the process of development.” (W.Va. Code § 8A-3-1(c)).
Through the comprehensive plan process, the community can identify issues or needs and then provide recommendations and an action plan to address those issues or needs…
Based on the vision statement, a draft list of issues was identified by the Planning Commission. Soon thereafter the planning commission decided to hold an open house to introduce the public to the comprehensive plan process, get general comments, and to see if the planning commission’s initial list of goals and objectives were consistent with the general public’s goals for Marlinton. The open house was held April 6, 2017 at the Pocahontas County Wellness Center and was well attended. The public had an opportunity to identify assets and challenges in Marlinton on a map, comment on the vision statement, and list what they believed the town should do with their tax dollars to better the community.
The open house was important not only to have a conversation with the public about the comprehensive plan process, but also to ensure that the work that the planning commission had completed up to that point was consistent with the general public’s concerns.
The planning commission, based on the open house results, then held a series of regular meetings, also open to the public, where they addressed one or two issues each meeting.
