Upper Arlington, Ohio
ACP was repeatedly hired to provide a full spectrum of planning services for the City of Upper Arlington, Ohio, a mature, affluent, first-ring suburb in the Columbus region with 34,000 residents. Over the course of five years, ACP developed and facilitated a comprehensive planning process, an extensive public involvement program, prepared urban design plans for eight commercial areas and merged the City’s development regulations and procedures into one award-winning Unified Development Ordinance.
Highlights:
- Upper Arlington's first Comprehensive Plan in nearly 40 years.
- Hundreds of citizens participated in 17 public meetings, resulting in nearly 900 ideas, a goal for each element of the comprehensive plan, and consensus on the future of land use.
- Focused on redeveloping existing commercial areas in the community with greater intensity and mix of uses—especially office use—in order to enhance City revenues and improve the overall community appearance and quality of life.
- The Comprehensive Plan was unanimously adopted.
- In less than one year after adopting the Plan, ACP helped Upper Arlington to become one of the first communities in Ohio to adopt a unified development ordinance (UDO). The Upper Arlington UDO won the 2003 Ohio Planning Conference (State APA Chapter) Award in the category of Focused Planning Project.