July 16, 2025

Six key themes became clear as planners move forward with Shape Sioux Falls 2050, a long-range comprehensive development plan.

The plan is designed to guide growth and development for the next 25 years.

The effort kicked off last year with multiple opportunities for public input, including a statistically valid survey, public meetings and an interactive website.

From that, the team working on the plan has started putting together a draft based on six main trends:

Housing and neighborhoods

“It was top of mind of most everyone we ever visited with, wanting us to support housing accessibility,” said Chris Shires, principal at Confluence, which is working on the plan with the city.

Also important: “Neighborhood preservation and neighborhood-friendly retail and commercial uses and long-range planning for neighborhoods.”

Transportation and mobility

“Folks want us to continue to create a safe, walkable, bikeable community,” Shires said. “(It’s a) big priority of the community” along with traffic safety and calming.

Respondents also support public transit, including “a lot of comments from folks who don’t use the bus but know how important it is to many others,” he said.

Conservation and resiliency

The public “wants us to continue to prioritize creating more park space and investing in trails,” Shires said, including infrastructure resilient enough to ensure it can withstand severe weather.

Economic development

The community provided a lot of feedback “that economic development is a priority,” Shires said. “They are excited to continue to grow the business community and grow the opportunity within our city, supporting infill development and redevelopment and encourage mixed-use development.”

Feedback was positive on recent development and redevelopment and encourages further facilitating downtown and mixed-use corridors, as well as supporting the biotech and health care industries.

Community resources

While it doesn’t exactly fit with a comprehensive development plan, the feedback was “so loud and clear” that community services are included as an element of Shape Sioux Falls, Shires said.

That includes everything from supporting services for homeless individuals to investing in indoor recreation, supporting the arts and prioritizing efficient and responsive services.

Infrastructure and public spaces

The development community in particular encourages evaluating infrastructure design standards to ensure “that we’re asking for the right size of public infrastructure,” Shires said, as well as prioritizing maintenance and long-range planning for where utility service will be extending services to future growth tiers.

Next steps

The city also is coordinating with metro-area communities as it finalizes Shape Sioux Falls, said Kevin Smith, assistant director of planning and development services.

“It’s now more important than ever to think regionally and not just locally in terms of our land use and transportation planning,” he said.

Expect to see an upcoming series of additional public meetings to gain feedback on the draft pan as it’s put together through the remainder of the year. The plan is to bring the plan for City Council approval early next year.