After a year of planning and seeking community input, the James City County Natural & Cultural Assets Mapping Committee finalized its plan on Tuesday to protect and bolster the local environment.
The committee met a total of five times since November to develop a strategic plan, which will later be considered by the James City County Board of Supervisors.
The committee, compromised of local community members, centered their several recommendations around four specific goals aimed at conserving natural habitats and historical sites, supporting agriculture, expanding planting projects and promoting biodiverse landscapes.
“This process is looking at natural and cultural assets. And both of those are umbrella terms from many different qualities underneath it,” James City County project manager Tammy Rosario said. “This is a deeper dive into all of those areas to explore and really getting into the real tangible things we can do to advance it and either protect or restore those assets. And so I just see it as an evolution in what we’ve been doing all along.”
Specific recommendations from the three main goals included preserving Jamestown Island, creating a heritage tourism route to promote agritourism, connecting young farmers and promoting the use of native plants.
The mapping committee was formed out of the James City County community’s expressed desire to place emphasis on protecting and preserving natural resources and the plan is a part of formalizing that desire, Rosario said.
In their last meeting, committee members spent two hours going line by line on the drafted strategic plan, providing updates and suggestions. Members emphasized the importance of financial transparency for these recommendations and included other community stakeholders as part of the strategic plan.
The work of the committee includes the strategic plan, a variety of maps covering local agriculture, forests and heritage assets, public engagement, plan history and funding. The final version of the plan will be 46 to 50 pages and will be drafted on Sept. 1.
“It will continue to go on. So adoption of the plan is just step one. Now there’s all the work behind it,” Karen Firehock, consultant project manager, said. “There’s a whole host of activities that are going to continue on for years and years. But it’s also a new set of data, a new set of maps that the county can use when they’re thinking about future growth.”
The plan will be presented to the Board of Supervisors to consider for adoption on Oct. 11.
