Richmond Heights is a “City with a Forward Look.” As the city prepares to celebrate its centennial, it is also re-imagining itself. Facilitated by County Planning, the Richmond Heights Master Plan focuses on Richmond Heights’ future as a welcoming city with healthy environments and beautiful landscapes, connected by public transit and active walkable streets, strong vibrant neighborhoods, and robust mixed-use developments. It was unanimously adopted by City Council on October 9, 2018.
Richmond Heights Master Plan
Executive summary
Document sections
In 2016, the City of Richmond Heights received a grant for professional planning services from the Cuyahoga County Department of Development to update its 2007 Master Plan. County Planning began the master planning process in late summer, gathering input and direction from city officials, residents, business owners, and other stakeholders to re-imagine Richmond Heights and develop a guide for its future over the next five to ten years.
Planning Process
The City of Richmond Heights Master Plan was constructed over the course of a year. The Master Plan included five phases.
Phase 1: Introduction – Planning 101: Why We Plan
The County Planning master plan process encouraged constant conversation, input, feedback, and engagement from city officials, residents, corporations, business owners, and community stakeholders at all levels. The Planning 101: Why We Plan component sought to introduce and inform participants about master planning, and the importance of their role in the process.
- Planning 101: Why We Plan Presentation (Project Team Meeting, June 21, 2016)
Current Conditions
The Current Conditions phase involved accumulating and analyzing baseline data such as population changes, ethnicity, housing, employment, income, transportation, community assets, land use, and environmental features to better understand Richmond Heights now.
- Current Conditions Presentation Part I (Steering Committee Meeting #2, September 20, 2016)
- Current Conditions Presentation Part II (Steering Committee Meeting #3, October 18, 2016)
Phase 2: Community Vision
The Community Vision phase outlined the major topic areas for the Master Plan such as community assets—focal points for the community, and vision statements—broad themes and descriptions of how the community would like to look and function in five to ten years. The vision statements also described the City’s desired future.
- Community Visioning/Current Conditions Presentation (Public Meeting #1, November 17, 2016)
- Community Visioning/Policies Presentation (Steering Committee Meeting #4, January 26, 2017)
Phase 3: Policy Development
The Policy Development phase proposed action steps to help the community reach its desired future. Action steps specifically addressed issues, concerns, and desires identified in project team, steering committee, stakeholder and public meetings, as well as those identified in the Current Conditions and Community Vision analyses.
- Policies Part 2 Presentation (Steering Committee Meeting #5, February 21, 2017)
- Policy & Actions Presentation (Public Meeting #2, March 29, 2017)
Phase 4: Implementation
The Implementation phase addressed how to accomplish specific goals and actions. This included identifying responsible parties, timelines, and priorities.
- Implementation and Resources Presentation (Steering Committee Meeting #7, May 11, 2017)
- Master Plan Overview: Implementation Actions & Strategies Presentation (Public Meeting #3, May 25, 2017)
Phase 5: Final Plan
The final draft of the Richmond Heights Master Plan was presented to a joint session of the Richmond Heights City Council and Planning Commission on February 21, 2018.
This presentation was made to a joint meeting of Richmond Heights City Council and the Richmond Heights Planning Commission on February 21, 2018. It is also available for downloading