Austin took another step Tuesday to ready a plan that will help guide discussions and decisions for land use, physical, social and economic development in the city’s future years.

Austin’s Planning and Zoning and Steering committees held two public work sessions to discuss survey results and future plans as it works to update the city’s comprehensive plan.

“We got a lot of information out of people,” Planning and Zoning Administrator Holly Wallace said. “It went really good.”

More than a dozen people attended the morning meeting at the Austin ArtWorks Center, where four tables covered each quadrant of the city. Groups talked at one table for a specific amount of time and then moved onto the next table. The afternoon meeting was at Riverland Community College.

Topics such as bike paths, transportation, safety, recreation opportunities and land use for specific activities were discussed.

Specific topics touched on bike access routes from the southeast area to the Jay C. Hormel Nature Center and how dangerous it could be crossing the Highway 218 bridge over Interstate 90.

Wallace said both sessions had good energy and produced many ideas.

Wallace said people would like to have more of these types of sessions. She added she would like to see specific neighborhood conversations if people wanted something such as a dog park or keeping streets clean in their neighborhood.

“It’s hard to do it with one person,” Wallace said. “We could find ways to facilitate those kinds of things.”

The committees partnered with SEH Inc., which led the table discussions. SEH is the engineering firm that created and complied an initial survey that gathered public input for the plan. About 211 people responded to the survey, which is average for a city of Austin’s size, according to SEH Inc.

Results were recently collected from the survey so the planning committee has a guide to future development.

The survey and community workshops are just part one of a longer plan. The next step is creating a vision for future plans and then putting the planning into motion.

The comprehensive plan helps guide discussions for land use, physical, social and economic development for the city’s future years. The plan is usually renewed every 10 to 15 years.

To see full results of the survey, visit www.sehinc.com/online/austin-comprehensive-plan