OGDEN — A vision is starting to come together for the next quarter-century of growth in Ogden.

Lured by the prospect of free pizza and a chance to help direct the city’s future, hundreds of people of all ages descended on Union Station for the first public workshop to build a general plan.

During the opening presentation, Ogden City Chief Administrative Officer Mara Brown told the audience they had a generational opportunity before them.

“The things that we do now will set the stage for decades to come of the future of this city,” she said. “It’s a chance to express your vision for the future of this city.”

After a short introductory video, Christie Oostema of People + Place — a Salt Lake City consulting firm helping the city — noted it’s been a while since the city last adopted a general plan.

“Our current general plan is 22 years old,” she said. “It’s time to update our plan and our vision.”

She said an updated general plan is key to helping guide a city’s development.

“It addresses current and future needs,” she said. “It guides the city’s growth. It lays out our priorities — you’re going to help shape those — and it’s an advisory guide for land use decisions.”

During the introduction, audience members were encouraged to vote on their phones for what they felt priorities should be, challenges that Ogden faces and what they see as the positives of the community. Following this, the workshop began. People gathered around tables in small groups with a map of Ogden and various items to help mark where things such as housing, business and transportation opportunities should go.

“The goal tonight is to get as much public participation as possible as we look to plan Ogden’s future,” Brandon Rypien, Ogden City senior planner, told the Standard-Examiner. “We’re trying to look out to 2050. We want to study growth. We want to look at how we’re planning for transportation and just how we can make the community better in the future.”

Wednesday night’s brainstorming workshop was the first public step in forming the general plan.

“From what we gather tonight, we’ll create different growth scenarios,” Rypien said. “From those growth scenarios, we’ll create a vision, and the vision will guide the general plan.”

He said it’s atypical that a community go two-plus decades between updating its general plan.

“Typically, general plans should be updated every 10 years,” he said. “Our last general plan was adopted in 2002. The data needs to be updated and it needs to be updated to reflect current trends. We need to make sure that we’re thinking about how we live today. A lot has changed — the way we live, the way we talk, commute, the way we communicate as a population is totally different than it was back in 2002. We want ot make sure that when we look at the future that we plan for our kids, that we plan for a sustainable city and also that we’re thinking about the economy in the future.”

Rypien said the city spent about six months doing some of the groundwork for the general plan process and, with the public now getting involved, there will be about a year and a half of work before it is formally up for adoption.

From Wednesday, feedback that was given at the workshop will be compiled into scenarios that will be presented at a workshop in the fall, which Rypien estimates will take place around the end of October.

In the meantime, Rypien described the large turnout Wednesday as being “amazing.”

“I’m excited that the community showed up,” he said. “We really want to make sure that we represent what the community wants. The vision and the community plan are really built on what the community wants for the future.”

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