Engage 2045 Update

Timeline & Process

Engage 2045 was the planning process to update James City County’s previous Comprehensive Plan, Toward 2035: Leading the Way. The Engage 2045 process united ideas generated by community residents with technical findings explored during the process to create a comprehensive and implementable plan for the future, now adopted as Our County, Our Shared Future - James City County 2045 Comprehensive Plan.  

Engage 2045 proceeded over two years in a series of phases that allow for multiple opportunities to check in, learn about the plan and provide input and comments.

The timeline shows the five project phases that proceeded from “Laying the Foundation” in the first phase through “Implementation” in the last phase.  At the same time, there were four broad rounds to the community engagement process that tracked with the project phases.  These engagement aspects included:

• Listening/Envisioning – learning about the plan and process and providing input into the County’s long-range vision for the future
• Exploring/Testing – exploring various alternative scenarios for the County’s future growth and change
• Deciding/Affirming – evaluating the features of each alternative scenario to affirm the preferred future direction for the County
• Planning/Implementing – building the elements of the comprehensive plan based on the vision and the preferred future direction

Throughout the process, there were multiple rounds of public engagement activities, including public meetings, website updates, questionnaires and outreach events in each round of engagement.