The City of Vancouver, WA is seeking a creative, forward-thinking, and multidisciplinary consulting team to perform a re-write of the City’s Comprehensive Plan and update the City’s Title 20 Land Use Code. Submissions will be accepted until 3:00 PM (Pacific Time) on Wednesday, August 24, 2022 at the following link: City of Vancouver - Comprehensive Plan Update Title 20 Land Use Code Update (bonfirehub.com)
This work will involve a major re-evaluation of the existing plan’s vision, goals, policies, and implementation strategy, to reflect significant population growth in the community, shifting development trends, changing demographic and socio-economic conditions, and changing community values and priorities. The City anticipates this work will center around the following priority areas identified by our City Council:
Land Use, Development + Infrastructure – how will the City account for the significant population growth occurring within City limits and our urban growth boundary, and what types of capital facilities, services, amenities, and infrastructure will be necessary to support that growth? How do we position the City for the level of growth and scale of growth needed to achieve our goals? How do we improve safety outcomes in the built environment? How will the City’s Land Use Vision inform placemaking and integration of a diversity of land uses? What methodology will we establish for evaluating different land use scenarios and receiving public input on potential land use visions?
Housing – how will the City plan to provide housing that is affordable and accessible to all members of the community, and address the deficit of housing at all income levels that is the result of decades of underproduction and restrictive zoning? How can providing access to housing opportunities for the most vulnerable community members improve safety outcomes and community well-being for all?
Equity and Opportunity – how will the City ensure that equitable outcomes are delivered in the built environment, develop an inclusive process for co-designing policy with the community, and ensure the voices of our most vulnerable and impacted community members are a central focus of the planning and policy design process? How will the overall vision that is established in the plan inform equitable access to opportunity, employment, investment, and the benefits from those investments? Who might potentially benefit the most or the least from these outcomes?
Climate + Environment – how will the City ensure that it’s land use vision delivers outcomes that further the mitigation of and adaption to a changing climate and improved public health outcomes? How do we intentionally shape growth to support our community’s climate goal of net zero emissions by 2040, reduce the community’s overall carbon footprint, ensure no net loss of critical environmental functions and processes, and support overall state greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction requirements?
The City encourage the formation of multi-disciplinary consulting teams with a wide range of backgrounds, perspectives, knowledge of our community, and lived experiences. The City intends to utilize a co-creative policy design process with community members, and center the voices of BIPOC, low income, and other historically underrepresented and marginalized communities which have been negatively impacted and harmed from decision making processes. The City will be looking closely at respondents ability to demonstrate the following characteristics: 
Previous experience developing or familiarity with Comprehensive Plans (in either the State of Washington or at a national scale).
Experience working under the Washington State Growth Management Act and State Environmental Policy Act, and a comprehensive understanding of the legal requirements of these regulations.
Significant overall project management experience and a track record of success overseeing complex and interdependent scopes of work within the consultant project management team, including expertise facilitating engagement with a wide range of diverse internal and external community stakeholders, as well as the general public.
Skilled facilitation capacity, with the ability to hold meaningful and accessible conversation with community members, policymakers, agency and regulatory partners, and advisory boards and committees, and take technical or complicated issues and discuss them in clear, plain language.
A fundamental understanding of the intentional and unintentional ways past planning and decision-making processes harmed BIPOC, low income, and other underrepresented or marginalized community groups, and a demonstrated ability to co-create new ways of engaging with community members that result in equitable outcomes and do not perpetuate or reproduce past harm.  
The ability to develop a visually compelling, easy to understand, meaningful and concise final document and iterative works, and the ability to deploy a variety of digital and non-digital methods to receive input and communicate findings with interested parties
Any questions can be directed to Domenic Martinelli, AICP, LEED AP ND, Senior Long-Range Planner at Domenic.martinelli@cityofvancouver.us or 360-487-7943. Please note RFP submissions should be delivered via the City's Bonfire Portal at City of Vancouver (bonfirehub.com). Emailed submissions will not be accepted.

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