FAQs

The Plan is a guiding document, designed by residents and local stakeholders, that serves as a framework for City Council to make decisions that best serve the community. The Plan details a long-term vision and policy agenda for important issues in land use, housing, parks, infrastructure, transportation, and more. The Plan includes an introductory analysis of existing conditions in Hudson, such as current demographics and land use. It also includes a summary of information gathered through public engagement such as workshops and surveys. The majority of the Plan is an outline of the community’s desires for future preservation and growth.

The City Charter requires that the City completes a comprehensive plan at least every 10 years.

The previous plan was completed in 2015. It can take 1-2 years to complete a plan, so the City is ahead of schedule to complete the current update by the required date of 2025.

Yes, City Council selected OHM Advisors as the planning consultant. Council received five proposals and interviewed each firm before selecting the consultant. The planning consultant helps the steering committee work through visioning exercises, provides guidance for facilitating public engagement, gathers data to aid the steering committee, and assists in writing the final comprehensive plan document.

The Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee is comprised of 18 Hudson residents who meet regularly to provide guidance on the overall direction of the plan. City Council selected members through an application and interview process that was open to all Hudson residents in 2022. Council also appointed representatives from City boards and commissions. To learn more about steering committee members, visit Steering Committee. 

You can participate by attending the community workshop on June 7, 2023 at 7:00 PM in the high school media center!  We highly encourage you to participate in this workshop with your fellow Hudson residents. It is the primary opportunity to provide in-person feedback to the steering committee, planning consultant, and staff. Additionally, it is critical that you complete the community survey. Whether you receive the survey in the mail or not, you may complete it online. The survey will be posted on this website when available.

The steering committee provided draft questions to a survey firm, ETC, who had previously administered the survey for the 2020 Hudson Parks Master Plan. ETC provided feedback to the steering committee and the committee revised the draft over the course of several public meetings. ETC then completed a final survey based on numerous rounds of feedback from the steering committee. Ultimately, the survey was written by the steering committee and revised by ETC to ensure that the questions met generally accepted survey standards.

You may hear that the community survey is "statistically valid."  A statistically valid survey is one that is completed with proper sampling methods, adequate sample sizes, and unbiased data collection to gauge the overall community sentiment based on responses received from a portion of the community. A statistically valid survey completed by a professional survey firm such as ETC has high reliability – that is, we can be very confident that the results are an accurate representation of the community’s desires.

Statistically Valid Survey: This survey was completed by a professional survey firm, ETC Institute, and has mathematically proven validity – that is, we can be confident that the results from those who completed the survey are an accurate representation of the overall community’s interests. This survey was completed with proper sampling methods, adequate sample sizes, and unbiased data collection using commonly accepted survey practices. The people who completed the survey reflect the ratio of ages, genders, races, and home occupancy types (rent/own) that would be found in the overall Hudson population. ETC selected the sample of households to receive this survey in the mail using a method called random sampling. Random sampling ensures that households have an equal and unbiased chance of being selected.

Selected households also received a link to complete the survey online if they preferred that over the paper copy (their online responses were kept separate from online responses that were submitted to the General Survey). ETC verified the responses by mailing address to confirm that only responses from households in the intended sample were included in the final results. The survey was sent to a far larger sample of households than the number of responses needed for a representative response. This allowed ETC to make sure that the responses analyzed within the sample provided an accurate reflection of Hudson’s demographics.

If the comprehensive plan resources refer to “the survey”, or “the survey results”, the reference is to the statistically valid survey unless otherwise noted. 

General Survey: The General Survey is the exact same survey form with all the same questions and answer choices as the Statistically Valid Survey. The only difference is in how the survey was administered. The General Survey was available online-only, not by mail. It was posted on the Let’s Talk Hudson page so that any resident could choose to complete it. ETC received and compiled the results. However, these responses were not part of the statistically valid sample and they do not necessarily represent the interests of the overall community. The results of the general survey can provide additional confidence in the statistically valid survey results and can provide helpful supplemental information about residents’ interests.

Workshop Memo: The workshop memo is only based on input provided by residents who attended the community workshop on June 7. The workshop was open to everyone, but the people who attended were not statistically representative of the overall community demographics. The workshop memo was compiled by the planning consultant, OHM. This information is supplemental to the survey results. Although the memo does not provide results as specific as the surveys, the information is valuable because it is based on detailed conversations that residents had with the planning consultants and steering committee members. The workshop memo can help explain nuances that were not captured in the survey responses.

Other Engagement Memo: The Steering Committee set up a table and activities at numerous community events in 2023 to further engage with residents. The other engagement memo is only based on input provided by residents who attended these community events, including farmers markets and the City's Earth Day Celebration. The events were open to everyone, but the people who attended were not statistically representative of the overall community demographics. This information is supplemental to the survey results.  

Yes. The Comprehensive Plan has several geographic focus areas that the steering committee identified. The focus areas are not the only places in the City that will be studied in the Plan; they are simply places that are likely to see change in the next decade. Focus areas may be adjusted after more community input is received, but the tentative focus areas are outlined in this map.

The community survey is a statistically valid survey (see above). It is mathematically proven that the results from a statistically valid sample of a population (in this case, the City of Hudson) will be almost exactly the same as the results of the whole population. For this reason, it is only necessary to survey a sample of residents. Using a sample also saves paper and money by limiting the amount of printing and postage needed for mail surveys. ETC selected the sample of households to receive the mail survey using a method called random sampling. Random sampling ensures that households have an equal and unbiased chance of being selected to receive the mail survey.

An online version will be available on this website, and we encourage everyone to complete it. This allows the steering committee to receive valid data while gathering as much feedback as possible. Our goal is to receive as much input from as many residents as we can.