CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR PHYSICAL GROWTH

The overall physical development pattern in Reno County is based on the stabilization, creation, and preservation of strong communities and market centers. These existing cities reflect an attitude of working together to offer a variety of complementary lifestyle and business opportunities in the county. A key to the future is the ability of Reno County citizens to balance the impact of new growth with the desire to maintain the current character of the county.
 
3.1 Conceptual Map
As shown on the Conceptual Map on the following page, a strategic method for achieving this balance is to identify a physical and policy framework that guides the location of future growth. The Blueprint for Growth identifies areas for:  

• Agricultural Preservation – areas of Reno County that will remain rural and agriculturally based. The level of public facility and service provision will not be urban in nature.
  
• Cities – the existing communities within Reno County that provide a small town or city settlement pattern.
  
• Growth Areas –areas that cities expect to grow in the future. The exact location of these growth areas should be based on each city’s desire for growth and a cooperative planning and policy framework among the cities and the County.
  
• Market Influence Areas – the economic or market trade areas for each of the cities. The map depicts that a direct relationship should exist between the services and businesses or unique character of a community and its ability to draw people to the community. Ultimately, the niche each community carves out from the anticipated growth of Reno County will determine future market influence areas.

Primary Highways and Connecting Roadways – routes and pathways that connect Reno County to the broader region. They also connect the communities within Reno County to each other and to other resources or places of importance. This stability and expansion of this network must be seen as a priority in the future.
 
While the conceptual map stops short of identifying the exact geography for growth, it is important to note that every community must determine its desired growth area. The result of that determination will impact the natural market influence area for a particular community.
 
For instance, Hutchinson has a market influence area that extends well beyond the county border; therefore, its market influence ring is not shown on the map. This is because of the historical and current role of the city in the regional context of agriculture, medical, and tourism, as well as other factors.
 
Other communities play similar roles on a smaller scale. In the future, each community has the opportunity to strengthen its current niche or change its direction as it sees fit. Each community, however, as well as the county in general must work together to ensure that they are all successful in accomplishing the Blueprint for Growth.
 
3.2 Key Physical Framework Concepts
Population growth at urban and suburban intensities primarily occur in and around communities in eastern Reno County or along the K-61 or K-96 corridors.

• Arlington, Buhler, Haven, Hutchinson, Nickerson, Pretty Prairie, South Hutchinson are the primary population growth centers for urban, suburban and rural town growth.
  
• Cottonwood Hills, a master-planned golf community, is the only unincorporated place (outside of existing municipalities and designated / planned growth areas) where significant population growth at a suburban scale is anticipated in Reno County. The golf course is already under construction, and a development plat should be submitted for approval in 2004-05.
  
• Yoder is an unincorporated area, located on the K-96 corridor, with a growing retail emphasis.
  
• Medora is an unincorporated “bedroom community,” five miles northeast of Hutchinson, that could experience future growth, especially if K-61 is expanded from a two-lane to a four-lane roadway within the decade.
   

• All communities should identify a planning or growth area based on a strategic or comprehensive planning effort that is coordinated with the overall vision for Reno County in order to reduce potential deterioration of market trade areas or unhealthy competition.
  
• Communities in western Reno County will primarily serve as “crossroad communities” that support a rural, agricultural-based lifestyle through the provision of single family and senior citizen residential opportunities, as well as retail and service commercial businesses that support the needs of agricultural and rural small town life. As appropriate, schools, churches, other institutions, or government services will be located in these communities, giving each community an institutional identity.
  
• Smaller communities in Reno County will tend to be “bedroom” communities, where people live in a variety of residential forms and densities (single family to apartment), but most likely they will commute to employment opportunities in and around Hutchinson or other larger communities. Commercial business development will be broad-based to support the daily needs of residents and, potentially, to attract visitors to these communities to do business. Institutional entities also are a part of the physical and social fabric of these communities.
  
• Broad based employment opportunities and growth will occur primarily in the existing city limits or in planned growth areas of Hutchinson and South Hutchinson.
  
• Transportation routes, primarily roadways and rail lines that link communities within Reno County or to other communities in the region, will become the primary framework for strategic capital investment. They will become the infrastructure support for economic development opportunities. These routes should be developed to a higher standard and receive priority-funding status for improvements in the future.
  
• Significant areas of trees, wildlife habitat, creeks/rivers, and sensitive lands will be preserved to retain a framework of open space that reinforces the rural character of Reno County. Development standards will reflect a desire to retain rural landscape treatments along primary travel corridors.
   

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