Comprehensive Plan Update

As a part of the City of Bemidji Comprehensive Plan Update our consultants are conducting a transportation survey.  Please share how transportation shapes your daily life and your priorities for Bemidji's future. Take the survey to share your story.

Who are we?
This is Our City Bemidji is made up of a team of local individuals and organizations working with the City of Bemidji on its Comprehensive Plan Update. Our collaborative group efforts are led by a core team of individuals, from the Headwaters Regional Development Commission, Bemidji State University’s Center for Empowered Communities, and the City of Bemidji.

What are we doing?
We are gathering input from a wide variety of community members, businesses, and organizations on their thoughts, ideas, and visions for Bemidji to complete an update of the City’s Comprehensive Plan. A Comprehensive Plan is our community’s big-picture guide for the next 10–20 years. It’s where we decide together what we want Bemidji to look and feel like in the future—and how we’ll get there.

Why are we doing this?
Comprehensive Plans need to be built from community input—your ideas, hopes, and priorities—and it helps the City Council, Planning Commission, and staff make decisions about growth, development, and change. It also makes sure we’re planning wisely for the future so that investments in housing, transportation, public safety, and the environment work together. You can think of it as a roadmap for our city’s future: it shows where we are now, where we want to go, and the steps we’ll take to get there. When we all help shape it, we make sure Bemidji stays a place we’re proud to call home.

How will your input be used?
The City is gathering input through surveys, focus groups, interviews, and conversations at events to help shape what we want Bemidji to become. All of the input will be collected, saved, synthesized and summarized to inform the City of Bemidji’s staff and council decisions on setting goals, objectives and strategies within the City’s Comprehensive Plan.

Where can you learn more?
Stay up to date on our process on this page. Public Hearings, and Comment Periods on drafts of the Updated Comprehensive Plan will be taking place in 2026. Stay informed, stay engaged, and let us know if you have any questions or concerns, or want to learn more about the process and plan. Cal Larson, Headwaters Regional Development Center (HRDC), clarson@hrdc.org