This Comprehensive Plan is prepared in accordance with the Code of Virginia (Section 15.2). Its purpose is to guide and accomplish a coordinated, adjusted and harmonious development in accordance with present and probable future needs and resources and to best promote the health, safety, morals, order, convenience, prosperity and general welfare of the inhabitants.

The Plan shall show the locality's long-range recommendations for the general development of the territory regarding designation of areas for:

• various types of public and private development, such as residential, business, industrial, agricultural, conservation, minerals, recreation, public service, flood plain and drainage;
• a system of transportation facilities;
• a system of community service facilities, such as parks, forests, schools, playgrounds, public buildings and institutions, hospitals, community centers, waterworks, sewage disposal or waste disposal;
• historical preservation and urban renewal or other treatment;
• implementation of reasonable ground water protection measures;
• existing or proposed recycling centers; and
• the implementation of measures to promote the construction and maintenance of affordable housing, sufficient to meet the current and future needs of residents of all levels of income in the locality while considering the current and future needs of the planning district within which the locality is situated.

In preparing a plan, the Planning Commission shall make careful and comprehensive surveys and studies of the existing conditions and trends of growth, and of the probable future requirements of the territory and its inhabitants.

Volume One, of the Plan documents existing conditions, including data on development of the County. This chapter provides the statistical starting point for the development of the Comprehensive Plan.

Volume Two, representing the second phase of the Pulaski County Comprehensive Planning Process, presents the Goals and Objectives developed by the Planning Commission to guide the development of the County (as set forth by State Code) for the next twenty years. These Goals and Objectives (presented in detail in next major section) serve as the foundation for the five-year life of this Plan.