RFQ - City Services for 2023 Comprehensive Plan #12199

The City of Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, will receive proposals for:

City Planning Services for 2023 Comprehensive Plan
REQUEST FOR QUALIFICATIONS

at CITY HALL LOCATED AT 688 HIGHWAY 90, BAY ST. LOUIS, MISSISSIPPI,
until 10:00 A.M. CST, October 17, 2022, and then at said office publicly opened and read aloud.

The City of Bay St. Louis, Mississippi is in search of professional city planning services for completing research and preparing the 2023 Bay St. Louis Comprehensive Plan. The intent of this project is to provide comprehensive research to form policy to increase the quality of life of the City of Bay St. Louis, its economic development prospects, balanced mobility, recreation opportunity, design quality, and environmental integrity. The process is expected to stimulate significant public review, random surveys, discussion on issues and alternatives through public meetings, interviews, and surveys. The consultant will provide professional planning services to complete the 2023 Comprehensive Plan. The effort will include an implementation program including development code revisions expanding on the City’s current transect based coding for the City’s zoning and subdivision ordinances.

Bay St. Louis has experienced significant growth and change since the adoption of its 2007 Comprehensive Plan. Our challenge is maintaining the small town and rural character, ensuring its sustainability and accommodating smart growth, economic vitality and fiscal stability. Our community is extremely passionate about identifying ways to achieve these underlying values. Bay St. Louis Mississippi, (population 10,000) the county seat of Hancock County, is located on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Bay St. Louis is located 20 miles away from NASA’s Stennis Space Center. The City has been in a rebuilding phase since experiencing complete devastation by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Covid-19 seems to have released the secret of the Bay St. Louis charm to people living in large cities, such as New Orleans. The City saw tremendous growth during Covid-19 and thus far, that growth has not subsided.

The project budget has not been established. Interested consultants should provide a scope of work and a practical budget for undertaking the project. The City intends to select a consultant and begin work on updating the current Comprehensive Plan by January of 2023.

The City of Bay St. Louis, Mississippi is requesting proposals to lead the community in the preparation and adoption of an update to the 2007 Comprehensive Plan. The planning horizon for the updated plan will be 2040. The City seeks a consultant that will guide the creation of a community vision for growth and development policies and implementation strategies. The consultant must be skilled in helping our community agree on a vision and the methods to achieve it.

The consultant should consider:
~An extensive and thorough public participation process including neighborhood-based workshops, focus group interviews, web based and social media interaction.
~Random sample survey of each ward.
~The development of goals, objectives and strategies for achieving the vision of the City.
~Land Use Analysis with emphasis on land markets, build out analysis and future supply and demand.
~Future Housing Needs Assessment.
~Balanced mobility including greenways, bike trails, and pedestrian elements.
~Urban design and architectural analysis with particular attention to transect planning concepts, alterative zoning districts and city form.
~An implementation program to include appropriate policy and project recommendations and performance measures for implementation accountability.
~Suggestions for zoning and subdivision ordinance updates.
~Interaction with local school districts to determine needs.
~Develop a Downtown Master Plan for the downtown area, with a high emphasis on parking and future growth.
~Develop a Parks, Recreation and Open Space Master Plan.

The consultant will provide 20 copies of the final Comprehensive Plan to the City upon adoption of the Plan. All data and information that has been collected through the process shall be provided in digital and hard copies. All documents must be available in electronic format, text in MS Word and Adobe PDF. All digital files must also be in .shp form for GIS applications.

Interested parties should describe their approach to the project. The responses should be brief, yet descriptive enough for the City to understand the method the submitter will undertake. At a minimum, the submitter should describe how they would propose accomplishing the major tasks associated with the project.

The contact for this project is Michael Reso, City Clerk for Bay St. Louis.

No oral questions will be answered. If additional information or clarification is desired, requests should be made in writing via email or US Mail to Michael Reso. Written Responses will be provided to all submitters via email. Questions shall be submitted by October 7, 2022.

Publish:
Wednesday, 9/28/22 and
Wednesday, 10/5/22

Michael Reso, CAO/City Clerk
Bay St. Louis, Mississippi