The City Planning Commission shall prepare and adopt, from time to time modify, and have custody of a comprehensive plan of the City showing its present and planned physical development. The comprehensive plan shall be known as the Physical Development Plan of the City and shall show the general location, character and extent of streets, parks, recreation facilities, sites for public buildings and structures, pierhead and bulkhead lines, City and privately owned utility facilities, waterways, water conduits and such other features as will provide for the improvement of the City and its future growth and development and afford adequate facilities for the housing, transportation, distribution, health and welfare of its population. The Physical Development Plan may be prepared as a whole or in successive parts corresponding to major geographical sections of the City or to functional subdivisions of the subject matter of the plan, as the Commission shall determine. The Commission shall transmit the Physical Development Plan or any part and any modification thereof to the Mayor and to the Council.

ANNOTATION

Sources: New York City Charter, 1938, Section 197; Model City Charter (1941) Sections 130 and 131.

Purposes: 1. The orderly physical development of a city requires current and long-term planning. A master development plan is an important aid to such planning and the Physical Development Plan will furnish the City with such a plan. The Plan is required to show structures and physical and natural conditions subject to regulation, control or modification by the City and important to the physical development of the City. Development of the City is used in the broad sense to include structures and conditions affecting the housing, distribution, health and welfare of its population.

2. Since the preparation of the over-all Physical Development Plan is a task of major proportions, provision is made for its preparation in successive parts, according to geographical subdivisions of the City, or by functional subdivisions, such as transportation, housing, water supply, and the like.

3. It is a duty of the Commission to prepare the Plan and then to submit it and modifications of it to the Mayor and City Council so that both the executive and legislative branches of the government will be apprised of its content when considering any action which may impinge upon it.

4. While there is no express provision for the Commission to hold hearings on its proposals concerning the Physical Development Plan, such hearings are not precluded and, as a matter of sound procedure and good public relations, should be held.

5. For the effect of the Physical Development Plan see Sections 2-307, 4-604 and 8-206.