Jefferson County Comprehensive Plan

The Jefferson County Comprehensive Plan is a master plan for the unincorporated areas of Jefferson County, with guidance for coordinating utilities and other multi-jurisdictional projects with municipalities within the county. It is developed and updated periodically by the Jefferson County Planning & Zoning Commission.

The Commission, with its powers and duties, was established by Act of Alabama 1947-344. The law was written to apply to "any county in the state with a population of more than 400,000". (At the time of the 1940 U.S. Census Jefferson County had a population of 459,930 and the state's second-largest county, Mobile County, had a population of 141,974.) It called for the county to develop a "master plan" which would include roads, bridges, utilities, public improvements, and proposed land uses and regulations.

In practice, the county developed various individual plans rather than a "master plan". In the 1990s

Meanwhile, a consortium of local governments commissioned the Regional Planning Commission of Greater Birmingham to draft an Upper Cahaba Watershed Study in 2002, and the Jefferson County Department of Health completed its own public health plan, "Our Community Roadmap to Health" in 2006.