After seemingly endless public meetings about it, the City of Hartford, in 2010, adopted One CIty, One Plan: POCD 2020, or Hartford’s Plan of Conservation and Development. Now, as there are rumblings of the next plan gearing up, it seems fitting to look at what Hartford was aiming for nearly a decade ago, and what has been achieved.

As they say, the POCD “is a guideline for asking questions, identifying challenges, determining resolutions and implementing strategies. It is a record of the best thinking of Hartford as to its future growth and to give direction to both public and private development.” The plan elements, in their words, include historic character, housing, economic development, transportation and circulation, infrastructure community and facilities, greening Hartford and sustainable development, and parks, open space and natural resources — just to name a few.

The current POCD was drafted under Mayor Perez and adopted just weeks before he resigned from office.

An early critique of the plan was that it was too conservative, especially regarding transportation. Thinking age would have tempered me, I revisited the plan to find goals that were even less ambitious than they should have been.

Over the next week, I will be reviewing three aspects of the plan: Parks, Open Space & Natural Resources, Transportation & Circulation, and Greening Hartford and Sustainable Development.