Megan Watkins

The City of Burlington's Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan guides the acquisition and development of public outdoor parks and recreation facilities. The plan is structured around several goals, including maintaining adequate recreational lands, ensuring accessibility for all residents, coordinating development efforts with other entities, enhancing the park system's quality and budget, improving the bicycle network, and utilizing technology for promotion and data collection. It aims to foster healthy, prosperous, and connected communities by focusing on conservation, health and wellness, and social equity, and to guide facility development through 2028.

The City of Burlington's Strategic Plan outlines the organization's goals, commitment to measurable outcomes, and delivery of quality services to the community, providing a framework for proactive decision-making. The plan aims to foster an innovative and collaborative city, ensuring prosperity and opportunities for all, by supporting a high quality of life through exceptional service and continuous improvement. It focuses on four strategic goals: Community Connections, Community Experience, Workplace of Excellence, and Financial Sustainability, addressing key challenges to enhance community well-being and fiscal responsibility.

The document outlines the future land use vision for Burlington, WI, focusing on development reserve, environmental conservation, parks and recreation, residential areas (low to high density, and traditional), commercial mixed use, corridor commercial, community commercial, downtown mixed use, business and manufacturing park, industrial and employment, light manufacturing, public and institutional areas, and utilities and transportation.

The City of Burlington, Wisconsin Strategic Plan, developed in 2012, addresses short-term (1-3 years) and long-term (5+ years) challenges and opportunities. Short-term priorities include studying the feasibility of combining fire and rescue services, developing the industrial park to increase the tax base, addressing workforce issues (including compensation, training, and creating a more cohesive work environment), conducting feasibility studies for library and City Hall renovations, maintaining service levels with declining revenues, and developing a sidewalk replacement program. Long-term priorities include addressing technology needs (including a potential paperless environment), developing a succession plan for department heads, encouraging workforce diversity, continuing industrial park development, and encouraging resident volunteerism and participation in local government. The plan emphasizes addressing fiscal challenges, improving infrastructure, enhancing community life, and ensuring public safety.

The 2008 Strategic Planning Workshop for the City of Burlington focused on maintaining and improving the city's infrastructure, while managing the tax burden on residential properties. Key areas included maintaining city infrastructure (repairing, replacing, and improving existing infrastructure), developing self-sufficiency (promoting balanced land uses), and taking pressure off residential property taxpayers (increasing assessed value of industrial and commercial property, closing tax increment finance districts, and considering alternative funding sources). The plan also addressed the future of the downtown area after the highway bypass completion in 2009, focusing on land use control in the bypass area, maintaining the central business district, and addressing city land use and building regulations. The workshop utilized a visioning process to define Burlington's current reality, discuss future trends, and describe the city's preferred future. The process involved identifying key result areas, setting strategic goals, and identifying measurable objectives to track progress.