After months of crafting and explanation, the Forward Together Comprehensive Plan of Jefferson County could be close to being approved.

Members of the Jefferson County Commission have for months asked about the status of the plan that — in union with a land use map — will make clear how development might proceed in various parts of the county.

“It looks at the current situation and just updates our land use plan and our comprehensive plan, meaning the type of zoning, where it falls and everything,” County Manager Cal Markert said. “Where might industrial go? Where might commercial go? All that kind of thing.”

The plan also evaluates the need for services and amenities, such as transportation and park land, and makes recommendations for the different sections of the county — north, west and south.

The county’s Planning and Zoning Commission held a public hearing  to discuss the plan with members of the public.

Josh Johnson, director of Jefferson County Department of Development Services, said it took time to take the plan on the road.

“The big delay was we wanted to meet mayors and staff, like the planning staff, elected officials, city councilors that wanted to meet with us from all the cities within the county to try and coordinate with them,” Johnson said. “We’ve got so many areas that are like pockets — around Hoover, surrounded by Hoover, some that are contiguous to other cities (and) sandwiched between cities. We want to make sure everything we were doing supported what they wanted in their cities but then also what they wanted in the county.”

The mission then, Johnson said, was to coalesce those things.

“We met with every city within the county, except for maybe three or four,” the development services director said. “(That) was a big lift, trying to schedule and rescheduling and going out there multiple times. Sometimes that slowed us up, probably about four or five months, trying to coordinate that and then have individual presentations, aligning all those dominoes.”

Commissioners have dealt with developers whose vision didn’t mesh with the vision of commissioners, much less residents of the area they targeted for development.

The proposed plan, which is available on the county website, addresses things that include residential developments, garden homes and various other land use matters.

“It’s a large macro-level plan for the county,” Johnson said. “Then we drill down into that spatially with the land use map. The Comprehensive Plan kind of outlines the goals of the different place types, different types of land use that we want to see in the county.

“The land use map takes those place types and says, ‘This is where this makes sense. This is the highest and best use,” the development services director said. “Then the zoning ordinance kind of regulates all that. It’s like the backbone, for lack of better term.”

Johnson is hopeful that the Planning and Zoning Commission will adopt a comprehensive plan and land use map. That body also will make a recommendation on the zoning ordinance, which would then go to the County Commission for approval.

“Legally, the Planning and Zoning Commission has to make a recommendation,” Johnson said. “The County Commission is the authority that has to approve or deny or modify or however they wish to proceed on.”