At the last Forward 2045 meeting, Winston-Salem and Forsyth County leaders answer residents’ questions about the future of their communities

Featured photo: Over the last several months, city and county staff have been seeking public input on Forward 2045, the new plan that will shape the area’s future. Residents went to South Fork Community Center in Winston-Salem on Aug. 14 to learn more about the plan. (Photo by Gale Melcher)

On Wednesday evening, staff with the city of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County met with residents at South Fork Community Center in the city’s West Ward for the last of four community meetings about Forward 2045, an “overarching document that sets the path for the next 10-15 years” for the city and county, according to the city’s Planning and Development Director Chris Murphy. This is the third iteration of a city-county-wide comprehensive plan; the most recent plan was Legacy 2030. Over the last several months, they’ve been seeking public input on the new plan that will shape the area’s future.

Poster boards were sprawled in a line spanning the length of the room. A plastic table with chairs lounging in a circle around it sat in the center. Residents meandered around the room and asked staff questions, or sat around the table, poring over the draft plan and writing down their comments on slips of paper before sending them through the slot in a large cardboard box.

Murphy walked around the room to answer residents’ questions, as did Planning and Development Deputy Director Kirk Ericson, Housing Project Planner Matthew Burczyk and principal planners Tiffany White and Kelly Bennett.

This new plan will help city and county leaders make decisions over the years.

“Some of this information may be what forms some of their policies and strategic plan moving forward,” Murphy told TCB. City staff can then take those goals and objectives and create things to work on, he explained. 

One of the focuses for 2045 is having “attainable housing and stable neighborhoods,” as noted on one of the posters.

A way to make that happen could mean having city and county staff ask elected officials to vote on allowing different housing types to be built to help fill in the gap, Murphy explained. That would involve changing zoning ordinances to allow more concentrated housing to be built in an area.

They also want to have “connected and accessible spaces,” another poster reads.

Part of that means making some changes. 

The city recently hired a new bus operator company, RATP Dev. In the future, the city will take a look at routes and how to optimize them, Murphy explained.

As for how transit relates to what the planning department can do, Murphy said that some things they’d like to look at are on the city’s main corridors such as Country Club Road, Peters Creek Parkway, Robinhood Road.

“Are there ways that we can look at those growth corridors and try to have more people that live along them that therefore make transit make better sense?” he posited.

Then they could have buses go along certain routes at a much higher frequency to make “transit more attractive.”

Andrew, one of the attendees on Wednesday, went to most of the gatherings, he said. He’s participating because he wanted to be a “bit more involved” and “get more in touch with what the future holds for Winston-Salem and Forsyth County,” he told TCB.

“You feel like you’re a part of a positive change, but it depends on if they actually enact it,” he said. “That’s the real question.”

Andrew recently moved to a new place, and mentioned that there’s a crosswalk on one side of the stoplight but not on the other three. Little things like adding more crosswalks would make a big difference, he said. People stop for cars, but cars are “not stopping for people.”

Residents like Andrew want to make sure the city follows through on its goals. One of the goals from Legacy 2030 was to “offer a variety of housing choices and convenient access to services.” A 2018 study found that the city had a shortage of 16,000 affordable housing units. Over the last few years, the city has aimed to add 750 new units to the housing stock. In 2022, they fell short of their goal by 300 units. However, last year, they were on track to make their goal.

While there’s a lot of information about the plan’s goals, Andrew still had some lingering questions about how local governments will make the plan come to fruition.

“It sounds like there are a lot of great goals in here but…. What are the kinds of steps or what are the sorts of methods that will hopefully ensure this happening?” he asked. 

Andrew said he hopes that residents can “continue to hear about it, continue to see it, continue to see the actual progress happening in the way that — hopefully — you wanted. Or if it’s not, are there spaces where we can bring potential ideas or corrections that they can make to veer back on track?”

Over the years with Legacy 2030, the previous plan, Murphy said that they would give the elected leaders annual updates about what had been accomplished and what things they had worked on that year to “try to bring to fruition the goals and objectives” of the comprehensive plan.

“I can’t imagine there would be anything different out of this plan, we would look to do the same thing,” Murphy said.

View the Forward 2045 plan here.

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