The final 2011-2021 Clay County Comprehensive Plan, as adopted on October 7, 2010, is now available.  Please click here or on the CCCP: Final Plan tab above. 

Join us in the multi-purpose room at the Clay County Courthouse to review the 2011-2021 Clay County Comprehensive Plan.  Drop in at any time to ask questions, and share your thoughts.  The multi-purpose room will be open during the following times:

• Thursday, September 9:   12:00 pm – 6:00 pm
• Friday, September 10:  9:00 am – 4:00 pm
• Saturday, September 11:  9:00 am – 12:00 pm

Each of the following links will take you to the corresponding section of the 2011-2021 Clay County Comprehensive Plan. 

Please Note:  This plan is a draft.  You will find typos.  Here and there, you will find a few blanks where additional data is needed or where information needs to be clarified as it goes through the final weeks of review.  You will also find some sections highlighted in yellow – this means the section needs a little more work to make it clear and concise.  Despite the typos, blanks, and highlights, the Plan, as presented here, is complete in that the topics, intent, and recommendations will not change until the community has had the opportunity to respond.

• Table of Contents
• Introduction and Overview
• Chapter One–Demographic Overview
• Chapter Two–Regional Opportunities Concept
• Chapter Three–Agricultural, Natural, and Cultural Resources
• Chapter Four–Land Stewardship
• Chapter Five–Transportation
• Chapter Six–Utilities and Community Facilities
• Chapter Seven–Economic Development
• Implementation

The complete document is also available–be aware that this is a big file and may take a long time to download.

• 2011-2021 Clay County Comprehensive Plan: Complete Public Draft (3.4 MB)

The following link will take you to the Clay County Comprehensive Plan Overview presentation provided to the County Commissioners on Thursday, September 2.

Next Steps

The CCCP’s policy recommendations and actions were presented to the Clay County Board of Commissioners on Thursday, August 5, 2010.  Topic areas addressed include: agriculture, natural resources, historic and cultural resources, land stewardship, transportation, utilities and community facilities, housing, and economic development. The Policy Recommendations document is available here:  CCCP Policy Recommendations and Actions.

September 2: CCCP Planning Committee will come before the Commissioners at the regularly scheduled September meeting to review the full Comprehensive Plan draft document.

September 9-11: Between September 9 and September 11, the CCCP Planning Committee will host a 3-day open house at the Clay County Courthouse where members of the community are welcome to come and review the full Plan in detail; to ask questions; and to provide feedback. Times will be announced soon. This input will be incorporated into the Plan in time for the Commissioner-led public hearing on September 23.

September 23: The CCCP Planning Committee and the Commissioners will hold a special meeting on September 23 to conduct a Commissioner-led public hearing. Public input will be incorporated into the plan in time for a scheduled plan adoption date of October 7.

October 7: On October 7, the completed Clay County Comprehensive Plan is up for a formal vote for adoption.

The materials for the February and March meetings are available on the documents page.  Over the next three months, the Comprehensive Plan Committee will work to compile the fragmented pieces of  their efforts into a cohesive draft Comprehensive Plan document.  The draft plan will be ready for community review in July.    Until then, our updates will be limited.  However, we will continue to post meeting agenda and minutes.

The monthly Comprehensive Plan meeting originally scheduled for Tuesday, March 23 has been rescheduled for Tuesday, March 30.  The meeting will be held at the Clay County Health Department Community Room from 12:00 to 1:30.

The Clay County Comprehensive Plan Community Input Summary was presented to the Commissioners at last night’s meeting.  The report summarized feedback received from the 680 individuals who completed our online community opinion survey, or participated in on or more of our focus groups, small group gatherings, or community meetings. 

The Community Input Report summarizes the information in nine topic areas:  human services, infrastructure, housing and buildings, land stewardship and landscape, community space, county government, economic development, growth and development, and overall satisfaction.  Of these topics, jobs and economic development topped the list, followed by land stewardship and natural resources; and infrastructure.   

Download:   Clay County Comprehensive Plan Community Input Summary (It is a big file!)

Next Steps:  The Comprehensive Planning Committee has been discussing one topic a month for a year.  Our meeting at the end of this month is our final topic meeting.  Next, we will put pieces together to form the Plan recommendations.  The community input, combined with the data and education committee members have gathered, will guide the recommendations.  If we remain on schedule, the committee will take three months to refine the Plan and its recommendations and we will have a draft ready for community review sometime in July 2010.  Between July and the end of September 2010, the Plan will be reviewed and revised based on input from the Commissioners and the community.  Keep an eye on this site for announcements regarding the next round of community input.

Meeting materials for the December 2009 and January 2010 meeting are now posted.  Minutes for the December 2009 are under presenter review and will be avalable as soon as this step is complete.  Documents are available here.

The minutes and supporting documents from the November meeting are now posted. You can view these documents by clicking here. The topic of discussion was agriculture. Our guest was Glenn Carson, District Conservationist from USDA-Natural Resource Conservation Services office in Murphy.

The minutes and supporting documents from the October meeting are now posted. You can view these documents by clicking here. The topic of discussion was transportation. Our guests were Rebecca Smith and Marie Gunther from Clay County Transportation and Ryan Sherby with the Southwestern RPO and Wesley Grindstaff with the NC Department of Transportation.