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Plan Rexburg | Learn and Participate in the Plan

Welcome! The City of Rexburg, Idaho is working to update its Comprehensive Plan (the Plan). This website will serve as a home base for participation, important information, and project updates. Our tools and pages will be updated as we move through this process, so check in often, register with your email for updates, and share this site with your neighbors!

What’s the Comprehensive Plan Update?

The Comprehensive Plan (the Plan) is a community-informed policy document that considers many facets of the community, including but not limited to: how to respond to growth; ensure orderly land use and development patterns; where major infrastructure and facilities should be anticipated; resource allocation; economic development; park and open space planning; and regional coordination. The updated Plan will ensure that policies and programs accommodate the challenges and opportunities associated with growth; and support the City in to being “America’s Family Community.”

This planning process is anticipated to last 12 months. The timeline below indicates some of the milestones and outreach events anticipated for each phase:

Project Timeline

Graphical user interface

Description automatically generated with low confidence

Click on the documents below for a copy of the workshop presentation and to see a high-level visual recap. A more complete summary will be created upon culminating this second phase and posted on the website. Stay tuned!

Land Use Workshop_Visual Recap.pdf

(7.2 MB)

Land Use Workshop Presentation.pdf

(1.0 MB)

Phases

Phases overview

Foundation

Opportunities and Choices

The Plan

Final Draft of The Plan

The Finalized Comprehensive Plan

The Plan

January 1, 2023 - July 31, 2023

Phase 3: The Plan

What: Based on all analysis, input, and work completed up to this point, the team will assemble a Draft Plan for review and refinement. Key components from the document will be presented at an open house and a complete version of the document will be available online for public review.

When: In-person events (open house) are anticipated to take place the week of April 24th, 2023. Opportunities for online involvement will be available for a whole month. (Please note that the original workshop dates for the week of March 13th, 2023 have been rescheduled).

Mon. April 24th, 6-8 pm: Public Participation Workshop - please join us to share your thoughts on the Comprehensive Plan!
Tues. April 25th, 6-8 pm: Public Participation Workshop - please join us to share your thoughts on the Comprehensive Plan!
Wed. April 26th, 5:30-7:30 pm: City Council & Planning and Zoning Workshop - open for public viewing, but closed for public comment.

5/8/2023 UPDATE

Our digital Draft Plan is ready for review! Please click the link below to open and review the Plan!

Digital Draft Plan

The Plan will be open and available for public comment until June 4th, 2023 (we've extended the review date past May 31st because of our delay in posting the document). If you have questions or concerns, we invite you to comment on the document or comment here below.

We want to hear from you! Share your comments and questions on the plan or plan process below!

9 issues

unknown author3 years ago I have concerns about the proposed location of the East Parkway Corridor. Most of the parkway will go through areas without residential development, but then ends up going through Founders Square and Crest Haven communities. The communities were not designed with a parkway in mind and several residents with young kids will be right on the parkway. Communities along 7th South are built a distance from the road. Residents do not open their doors to cars driving by at 45mph, which will happen on a parkway like it is on 2nd East by the water tower. Why not use 7th South as the parkway, or have the parkway go south on Millhollow to Pole Line then West. If the intention of the parkway is to be a belt route, why not have it loop around the outside of Rexburg instead of directly through neighborhoods?

unknown author3 years ago I attended the meeting on 4/24 at City Hall. Overall, I left a bit confused. I think many of the folks also left confused. My concern is where the city will get all the money for the projected growth. I am assuming the city gets more money from the rolldown of property taxes from the county than sales tax because it seems the city is more attracted to housing than commercial/industrial. If that is the case, Rexburg will remain a bedroom community, and all the sales tax will go to Idaho Falls and Ammon. If the city wants to become more self-sustaining, they need to think about how they are going to get commerce in the city. Either way the city decides, you still need to put together a preliminary budget. I am sure some are going to say that is too hard, but the reason many cities are in bad shape is they planned for the growth but did not plan the monetary part. Now they have to ask the residents to pass a bond so they can stay afloat. My question is, why did the city not think of the monetary part of the plan first? Is the city even sure they can do all the things in the comprehensive plan? The city has gotten a whole bunch of people either excited or upset with the plan, and the city does not even know if it can afford the growth.

unknown author3 years ago Things I like: *connecting trails*more parks. Things I am concerned about: *There is this huge population growth estimate. Where are all these people going to work? Not all of them will be working from home for an outside company. Where are the jobs being created that will be sustaining all this growth? This is not shown in the plan. *I am not happy with the zoning change that has happened on the East across from the Temple. I feel like we need to keep the integrity of different areas of Rexburg. It should be kept as single family housing, not multi family. *East Parkway Corridor- I feel as America’s Family Community you would care about the families that are living here now. Putting a 5-7 lane road through residential areas is not looking out and caring about families in this community. Allowing homes to be built right next to this corridor without any buffer is unfair planning! This corridor needs to be looked at with fresh eyes. It doesn’t matter if this has been the plan for the last 20 some years. .. some poor decision were made then and more poor decisions have been made since then. This needs to be relooked at with the decision to make this road safe for all the citizens. Convenience should not take precedence over the safety of families and value of their homes.

unknown author3 years ago After reading through past plans, I'd like to encourage some action on long proposed but yet to be made multi use and bike paths! I biked to Sugar the other day, and by far the most dangerous -and frightening- part of the route was along N 2nd East to get from the Teton river trail to the multi use path up to Sugar. There are several spots like that, where the network of sidewalks and bike lanes has disconnects or places where pedestrians are thrown into very busy and dangerous areas. I wouldn't feel safe taking my family for a walk to or between many of the parks in town because of this. I hope the long proposed connections get made!Additionally, walking in the winter in Rexburg drops from 94% to 25%, biking from 36% to 2%. Better sidewalk and path maintenance (particularly in parks or where snow from roads is plowed on to sidewalks and bike lanes) would surely help with that and help community members feel less boxed in and be more active instead during the cold months!

unknown author3 years ago The City of Rexburg is currently planning some nice improvements, however let us not forget the VERY critical items that are necessary to allow ANY of the proposed improvements (parks, recreation districts, parkways, etc.) and that is the support, maintenance, and repair of existing services. For example, during the last few years Rexburg has badly failed to keep the existing roads sufficiently serviced and repaired. How can we expect to enjoy other improvements if the existing roads are horrible?

unknown author3 years ago As Rexburg Develops, there needs to be a greater focus on the streets of the city. Too many arterials in the city are “Stroads”, where the complexity and intricacies of a street are mixed with the dangerously high speed of a road. The stroad W 1000 S leading to the Temple on the hill is an excellent example. Briggs Robert Kline was a student who lost his life because a driver was lulled into not paying attention by the wide lanes and lack of obstacles. Had the road been narrower, or obstacles such as trees and parking been placed close to the roadway, she wouldn’t have felt so comfortable flying down the hill. Additionally, a greater emphasis for transportation in Rexburg needs to be placed on its residents without a vehicle. Widening roads and increasing lanes only increases traffic due to a phenomenon known as “Induced demand”. The only consistent way to reduce traffic is to provide safe, comfortable, and convenient alternatives. Wide sidewalks, protected bike lanes, and direct routes by walking and biking to destinations needs to be a priority for the city moving forward. Additionally, the city needs to start a proper bus service. There are 3 private companies using busses already, so obviously the demand is there. Finally, in the next couple decades, it’s extremely likely a passenger rail service could begin in Eastern Idaho, connecting cities from Pocatello to Ashton, not unlike the Frontrunner in Salt Lake. The city should be prepared for this by increasing density around the likely stations in Rexburg (Such as on University Boulevard, Volmoss Road, and around Riverside Park). Rexburg has a solid foundation. I enjoyed my time as a student there (I graduated last Spring). As the city continues to grow, smart planning and equitable infrastructure could turn it into one of the greatest cities in Idaho.

unknown author3 years ago I have two concerns I would like to bring up.First is the population growth assumption. I understand that Councilwoman Flora stated (at the Monday night meeting) that the magnitude of the growth numbers are not important, only that we know the growth is coming. However, I feel like getting those numbers as accurate as possible does influence the way we think about growth. My concern is the assumption that the proportion of growth between the county and city will remain constant over the next 25 years. I have looked at the recent growth numbers for the last couple of years, and it appears that the county is growing at about 1.9%. This is consistent with the transportation study numbers that showed a growth in the County of 2.2% between now and 2048. However, the recent growth numbers, when broken down, show that the city is growing at 1.2%. This means that the unincorporated County is growing at 3.3%. While the county population will still be close to 100,000 by 2048, these numbers indicate that the city will likely be in the low-50,000 range, while the unincorporated County will be around 45,000. So instead of the city growing by about 34,000 to 73,000 (an 87% increase) it will only grow by about 15,000 (a 40% increase). That is only half of the planned growth in households — 5000 vs 10000. So the plans we make should, I feel, account for this more modest growth rate. The other implication is that some of what the city has to plan for is growth in the county and accommodating the transportation needs of the people coming in from there. If the growth continues to the west and north of Rexburg, that requires some different considerations than if the growth is coming to the east or south, and also different from if we considered much of that growth occurring in the city limits which we do with the current population growth distribution assumption.My other concern is with transportation. There are two issues that I am concerned about. First is the way the current plan is considering handling the higher traffic loads on the south and east side of the city in the plan. The second is the lack of detail in other areas of the city. First, the proposed East Parkway corridor has been in, as I understand it, since 2003. However, the city at the time made no moves to implement that. This left people moving into the area near the corridor unaware of its proposed presence. (On the other hand, I think the city handled it correctly when putting in Harvest Heights – they put in the full five lanes of road to the south and east of the development so that the people moving in there knew that there would be a large road there someday.) I feel like changing the nature of the road after development has gone in is not good for neighborhoods. Because of that, I feel like the section of the East Parkway corridor through Crest Haven and founder square should remain in its current state. This would mean rethinking the location of the proposed East Parkway corridor. The logical place to move it to would be to the undeveloped farm lands to the east and south of current developments.I would prefer a transportation plan that had multiple paths for the traffic to follow-a grid system much as Rexburg is currently set up. I have lived in two different cities with these two different approaches. One city I lived in had a major road with all the neighborhoods connected to that road. Each neighborhood had either one or two outlets to that road, and that was the only way to get in or out of those neighborhoods. Over time, the road would have periods where it became extremely congested, traffic movement slowed, and getting out of neighborhoods could take a long time before there was a break in traffic. Eventually they started putting in traffic lights at select neighborhood intersections, which helped those neighborhoods to get onto the road, but further slowed down the traffic on the main road. I feel like putting in a road that is supposed to be a fast road but later has to be slowed down because of the development that goes around it shows that there was a flaw in the plans originally. That is what happened on 2nd West when it dropped from a 35 mph road to a 25 mph road — it became less effective at fulfilling its purpose of moving traffic quickly between Yellowstone Highway and Rexburg The second city I lived in had multiple paths to get to the downtown area. Depending on the traffic and the time of day I was trying to get around, I might choose different routes that would get me there fastest.If we were to put in a road like the proposed East Parkway corridor, I feel like it would need to look like US 20 to be successful – developments are kept away from it with buffer zones next to it filled with things other than residential neighborhoods and limited access so the road would always be high-speed. But again, I don’t feel like the current planned route fits that bill in the section that is already going past developed neighborhoods.I’m also concerned about what the plan does not say about transportation. I feel like one of the big problems Rexburg is going to face in the next 25 years is how to keep traffic moving on Idaho 33. Main Street could be opened up to seven lanes by taking out all parking, but 2nd East is already at maximum width without encroaching on businesses. I feel like a plan to address this is needed in the comprehensive plan. It seems like we need some alternate pathways through the city. Unfortunately, changing the nature of existing downtown roads will have the same detrimental effect on neighborhoods and as I discussed with the East Parkway corridor. One thing other cities have done is create one-way roads. If 2nd East became one-way northbound and 1st East was extended and converted to one-way southbound, traffic capacity could be significantly expanded. Most of the 1st East route seems like it could fit the bill. Unfortunately, there are already houses between 1st and 2nd North which would be negatively affected.Also, if the East Parkway corridor is planned to handle traffic in newly-developed farmland in southeast Rexburg, the Parkway will take care of the traffic getting south to US 20 or north up to Sugar City, but it does not address what would probably be the more pressing issue of how to get those people downtown without turning existing roads into high-volume roads that they were not designed to be. I am not sure what the solution to this is, but I don’t see it in the plan.

unknown author3 years ago

unknown author3 years ago I'm new to the plan on this platform, so I may not have all the information. It seems to me that the project to move the airport would open up significant land for commercial, residential, and recreational use. I understand that moving the airport is a major and time consuming project, but surely it will be done well before 2048. Is there a reason that land hasn't been included in any of the proposed plans? In addition, I know that having a second in town river crossing is an essential aspect of the long term city planning. What is the current plan for that? My understanding is that it is currently planned to cut through Eagle Park, which is one of the few already designated recreational parks. Could we consider extending pioneer/the airport road over the river instead? There is significantly more potential room to build a major road across the river without requiring moving the fair grounds or disrupting a residential area. Of course, this also hinges on moving the airport.

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Past events

Review the Final Draft of Plan Rexburg
Event date: July 26th, 2023 from 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM.
Rexburg Council Chambers
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Plan Rexburg Workshop!
Event date: April 25th, 2023 from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM.
City Hall/Council Chambers
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Plan Rexburg Workshop!
Event date: April 24th, 2023 from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM.
City Hall/Council Chambers
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Planning and Zoning Workshop
Event date: March 15th, 2023 from 5:00 PM to 6:30 PM.
City Hall/Council Chambers
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JOIN A LAND USE WORKSHOP AND HELP PLAN THE FUTURE OF REXBURG!
Event date: October 20th, 2022 from 5:00 AM to 6:30 AM.
TBD
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JOIN A LAND USE WORKSHOP AND HELP PLAN THE FUTURE OF REXBURG!
Event date: October 18th, 2022 from 5:00 AM to 6:30 AM.
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Plan Rexburg | Learn and Participate in the Plan

Phases

The Plan

Our digital Draft Plan is ready for review! Please click the link below to open and review the Plan!

We want to hear from you! Share your comments and questions on the plan or plan process below!

9 issues

East Parkway Corridor Concerns

The comprehensive plan

Look at things with fresh eyes

Pedestrians and Cyclists

Critical Needs

Safe Streets and Inclusive Transportation

Population estimates and transportation

Mind Map of Phase 2

Airport land

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Review the Final Draft of Plan Rexburg

Plan Rexburg Workshop!

Plan Rexburg Workshop!

Planning and Zoning Workshop

JOIN A LAND USE WORKSHOP AND HELP PLAN THE FUTURE OF REXBURG!

JOIN A LAND USE WORKSHOP AND HELP PLAN THE FUTURE OF REXBURG!

Plan Rexburg | Learn and Participate in the Plan

Phases

The Plan

Our digital Draft Plan is ready for review! Please click the link below to open and review the Plan!

We want to hear from you! Share your comments and questions on the plan or plan process below!

9 issues

East Parkway Corridor Concerns

The comprehensive plan

Look at things with fresh eyes

Pedestrians and Cyclists

Critical Needs

Safe Streets and Inclusive Transportation

Population estimates and transportation

Mind Map of Phase 2

Airport land

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Upcoming and ongoing events

Past events

Review the Final Draft of Plan Rexburg

Plan Rexburg Workshop!

Plan Rexburg Workshop!

Planning and Zoning Workshop

JOIN A LAND USE WORKSHOP AND HELP PLAN THE FUTURE OF REXBURG!

JOIN A LAND USE WORKSHOP AND HELP PLAN THE FUTURE OF REXBURG!