GULF SHORES — On July 14, Gulf Shores residents helped shape the city's vision for the next 20 years at the new high school during the first public workshop for a new comprehensive plan.

The open house served as the first public step in a 16-month effort to develop a new "playbook" for the city's future. This plan will ultimately guide decisions on transportation, housing and infrastructure through 2045.

"We've got to look into the future and make sure what we're doing is what we need to remain who we are," Mayor Robert Craft said.

Consultants from Interboro Partners, a firm selected unanimously from 12 national proposals, transformed the school's new theater into a workshop featuring seven interactive stations.

Attendees began by pointing out their own neighborhoods on maps and answering demographic surveys to ensure the plan reflects a representative sample of the community. At other stations, they viewed maps of existing data regarding homeownership, zoning and underdeveloped land while answering prompts about their initial takeaways.

To move beyond broad ideas, residents completed a visioning exercise that asked them to connect community values with specific transportation and housing priorities.

In a "Seeing Gulf Shores" exercise, participants captioned 100 random photographs taken across the city. Residents described what the images represented to them, giving planners insight into how different parts of the city are perceived.

The workshop also allowed residents to "play city planner" by placing small colored tabs for specific priorities, such as outdoor dining, healthier wetlands, beach access and affordable housing, onto a large-scale map of the city.

"A comprehensive plan only succeeds if it reflects the people who know the community best… That is you," said Daniel Dioka, a principal with Interboro Partners.

The final station invited attendees to share a slogan for the project, seeking a more engaging subtitle than "the Gulf Shores Plan." Over the next year, the planning team will continue gathering data at farmers' markets and pop-up events.

Lee Jones, the city's planning director, said the goal is for the final roadmap to be a direct reflection of those who live there.

"This is your plan," Jones said. "Hopefully you will see your fingerprints all over it at the end of the day.”