Vicksburg’s Planning Commission gave its OK to the city’s first comprehensive plan since 1996, clearing one more hurdle for the plan, which is expected to serve as the city’s long-range planning guide for the next 25 years.

The commissioners Tuesday voted 4-0 to recommend the plan’s approval by the Board of Mayor and Aldermen after a 20-minute public hearing attended by two residents. There were no questions or comments. No date has been set when the board will discuss the plan.

“We ‘ve been long overdue to have a new comprehensive plan for the city,” Community Development Director Victor Gray-Lewis told the commissioners.

“This plan is a compilation of several previous plans which we read and decided that the ideas are still good,” said William Peacock, a planner with Central Mississippi Planning and Development.

“Many of these things presented in the previous plans had not been implemented, but they were still valid ideas. So we included them in this current plan.”

He reminded the commissioners that since the document is a long-range plan, “we expect to have a short-range plan of immediate things that can be done. But because things cost money, sometimes you have to stretch things out over time.”

The 227-page comprehensive plan draws on information developed from reports in the 1990s and the results of an Oct. 22 city planning forum to provide information on the city’s direction. It includes a breakdown of the plans supplemented with artwork to give readers an idea of what can be done to improve the city.

The main elements of the new plan, Gray-Lewis said, are basically the same as the 1996 plan, and examine goals and objectives, land use plan, transportation plan and a community facilities plan.

The results of the Oct. 22 planning forum, where local civic and business leaders were asked to comment on different issues using a remote voting device, were combined with the results of city-sponsored studies done in 1993 to help develop the goals in the new plan.

One change from the 1996 plan is the new plan’s neighborhood concept, which Peacock said was developed in 2008.

The neighborhood plan divides the city into 12 different neighborhood districts based on each neighborhood’s individual characteristics such as architecture, land use, topography and other issues, and provides recommendations that use the neighborhood characteristics to improve them and the city.

Among the other ideas taken from the 1993 study were gateways at different entrances to the city and the waterfront, a siege museum and scenic and historic trails and bicycle paths through the city.

Also discussed is downtown development, including a pavilion for the Vicksburg Farmers’ Market, a project Mayor George Flaggs Jr. has promoted as a site for presenting programs when the market is not in session. A farmers’ market pavilion is included in the city’s capital improvements plan, which the Board of Mayor and Aldermen reviewed in January.

The gateway concept, another recommendation from the 1993 study, envisions gateways at the old U.S. 80 bridge, Clay Street, the waterfront and U.S. 61 North at Washington Street. The bridge, Clay Street and waterfront gateways form a triangle that was recommended in the 1993 study as a scenic area with a green area containing walkways, bike paths and a scenic boulevard.

The plan also discusses a river walk along the Mississippi River featuring observation sites and retail shops, starting at Diamond Jack’s Casino and going south along the river under the bridges to Riverwalk Casino.