Updating Shreveport-Caddo’s Master Plan

Stressing the importance of planning in the life of a city like Shreveport, the Shreveport-Caddo Metropolitan Planning Commission (MPC) launched an effort in 2024 to update the Great Expectations: Shreveport-Caddo 2030 Master Plan. According to the MPC website, the updated plan and its community engagement process emphasize the importance of a shared community vision to guide the future of the city of Shreveport.

Citizens were encouraged to attend all three scheduled meetings, two of which have already occurred. The final meeting is tentatively set for this month.

The workshops were intended to engage the community in interactive activities, learn about citizens’ personal visions for Shreveport, develop a strategy for equitable development and land use planning, and gain feedback on plan recommendations and implementation.

The first community workshop focused on learning about community priorities and aspirations. The second used “visioning themes” to explore land use and development issues more deeply.

The third and final workshop is designated as the Act Workshop. The hope is to define the plan’s key recommendations, including a revised land use map and implementation strategy.

The final plan’s goals are to understand Shreveport’s current conditions, engage community members to share their dreams for the city and help create the plan’s goals and recommendations. The last workshop will seek to develop an equitable development strategy, including a map of future land use to show where changes would be implemented. It also looks for processes to guide the city in implementing the recommendations of the meetings.

Alan Clarke, executive director of the MPC, said the final meeting date had been tentatively set for Dec. 11, but that may change. “The first two meetings were good, but they were not overwhelmingly attended,” Clarke said. “When you complicate things more with the Christmas holidays — people will possibly be out of town or engaged in other activities — we may not get the crowd we desperately need.”

Clarke said the planners want to survey a representative cross-section of the people affected by the changes that inevitably come with the growth of a community. “The word needs to get out that these meetings are concerning the future of the city of Shreveport. These will be the recommendations in the master plan and will be used as directions and planning for the orderly growth of the city,” Clarke explained. He added that these meetings are an opportunity for citizens to make their voices heard and to include their input and concerns to help shape the future of Shreveport.

The draft plan will be available for public viewing after the final meeting. “The consultants are questioning the people who are there. They are not sit-down, formal meetings,” Clarke stressed. “You move around and look at the different presentations that are available. Those that think the MPC does not listen to citizens, this will be an excellent opportunity for them to make [themselves part of the process].”

Following the public review period, the project team will make any needed revisions before submitting it to the MPC for review. The next step is for the team to present the project to the Shreveport City Council for approval or further revisions.

The Great Expectations: Shreveport-Caddo 2030 Master Plan was adopted on Dec. 1, 2010. Since then, the city of Shreveport and the MPC have implemented their recommendations through projects such as the Unified Development Code, which was adopted in 2017.

Fifteen years after work began on the 2030 Master Plan in the spring of 2009, Shreveport has endured worldwide economic changes, including recovery from the recession, the COVID-19 pandemic and local economic shifts. Regional planning and development have also changed with the separation of planning powers between the city of Shreveport and Caddo Parish.

One Shreveport will be a policy document that outlines the city’s long-term vision for growth and development. Its intent is to provide guidance to the city’s decision-makers in land use and development, housing, economic development, transportation, parks and open space, utilities and community facilities, among other areas.

As for the date, time and location of the final session, Clarke suggested, “Go to the MPC website and click on One Shreveport to get updates on the meeting time.”

https://www.shreveportcaddompc.com/home.