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Comprehensive Plan
The Comprehensive Plan describes & illustrates community goals and guides decision-making for various matters.
On this page, you can walk through two types of draft revisions to the Comprehensive Plan:
- Revisions to the Community Values statements (re-envisioned as Guiding Principles). These are overarching priorities for the entire Comprehensive Plan.
- Revisions to the topic-specific Vision Statements. These are priorities and outcomes for each topic-specific chapter.
This is only our first step in updating the Comprehensive Plan.
- These initial updates unincorporated community feedback we received earlier this year.
- We will continue to use community input to refine the Guiding Principles and Vision Statements.
- We will then proceed with draft revisions to the goals and actions in the Comprehensive Plan, to work toward outcomes that are in line with the updated Guiding Principles and Vision Statements.

If you would like more background on the general purpose and content of the Comprehensive Plan, please visit this page.
Comprehensive Plan Community Values / Guiding Principles
Community Values (2013)
These are statements that describe the overarching themes for the future of the City. For the 2013 Comprehensive Plan, the focus was on implementing the City Council 2025 Vision. That vision remains in place today, but the Council is in the process of updating their Strategic Plan.
2013 Community Value Topics
- Economic sustainability
- A center for lifelong learning
- Quality housing opportunities for all
- Charlottesville arts & culture
- A green city
- America’s healthiest city
- A connected community
- A community of mutual respect
- Smart, citizen-focused government
Guiding Principles (2020 Draft)
For the Comprehensive Plan update, we are proposing to evolve the idea of the Community Values chapter from 2013 into Guiding Principles specific to the topics addressed in the Comprehensive Plan.
These statements will remain complementary to the City Council vision, but they will be cross-cutting, describing priorities that may not be limited to only one topic-specific chapter. With these, the Plan can more easily demonstrate how strategies from different chapters will work together to address these important priorities.
(click the “+” for more information)
Vision Statements by Topic
Below, you can see the existing Vision Statements and draft revisions. Notes on these items:
Chapter Titles
- Some chapter titles have been adjusted to better reflect the contents of the chapter.
- In the case of the Land Use chapter and Historic Preservation & Urban Design chapter, these revisions propose combining those two chapters into one chapter, to better reflect the interconnectivity between those topics in Charlottesville.
Click the “+” to Review the Vision Statements
- Once it is open, you can click “-” to close it.
- If you want, you can open previous versions and revised versions at the same time to compare them.
Existing Statements
(Starting Point for Revisions)
Revised Vision Statements
(2020 Drafts)