The city of St. Charles will soon have a new plan for its future.

At its meeting Tuesday, the St. Charles City Council is set to approve a new strategic plan for the city. St. Charles leaders envision the city as an engaged community with a sense of place and belonging where everyone is welcome.

That’s the vision statement of St. Charles’ new strategic plan, which spells out the city’s goals and priorities for the next five years. The plan identifies four strategic priorities: balanced and thoughtful development, community engagement, organizational resiliency and financial wellness.

In regard to community engagement, some of the goals include launching a new city website and creating a new online portal for residents to view and pay utility bills by the end of 2023. As far as balanced and thoughtful development, goals include completing a downtown comprehensive parking study, including a signage analysis, by April and determining top priority development sites for the east side, west side and downtown on an annual basis.

Last June, the City Council approved a $74,800 contract with consultant BerryDunn for the preparation of an updated strategic plan.

“For the past six months, BerryDunn has been conducting an extensive public engagement strategy to collect input via one-on-one meetings with key stakeholders, public forums, group discussions, surveys and a project website,” St. Charles Economic Development Director Derek Conley said.

The 2015 strategic plan provided direction for the city through 2020.

“The undertaking of an updated strategic plan was delayed until 2022 because of the disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic and the installation of a new mayor and city administrator in 2021,” City Administrator Heather McGuire said.