A new plan for development in Baldwin County is moving forward.

On Thursday, the Baldwin County Planning and Zoning Commission unanimously adopted “Our Vision: A Citizen’s Guide to Growth in the Zoned Areas of Baldwin County,” a strategic document that outlines a plan for development in the county. The document now goes to the Baldwin County Commission for final approval.

The document serves as a “master plan” that, under state law, counties and municipalities must prepare and adopt every few years to regulate the development in their communities. But planning and zoning staff are careful to stress that this document—which only applies to the zoned areas of unincorporated Baldwin County—does not have any regulatory powers and serves as a guide for the planning commission and citizens as they consider future development.

So what, exactly, does this document impact, if it doesn’t have any regulatory powers? The primary impact comes in the zoning process, Planning and Zoning Director Matthew Brown said at the meeting Thursday. When considering zoning or re-zoning a parcel of land, the planning commission considers 11 different factors, one of which is compatibility with the county’s master plan for development, i.e., this document. But Brown said Thursday that each zoning case is different, and the master plan factor would not necessarily outweigh the others, which include transportation infrastructure and environmental impact.

And in the fastest-growing county in Alabama, growth is one of the biggest topics on residents’ minds these days. In fact, many citizens of Baldwin County submitted comments on the document over the last few months since it was introduced last fall. In the plan, surveyed Baldwin County residents list “loss of rural lifestyle/agriculture” as their number one concern; “unplanned or regulated growth” was their number three concern.