SARATOGA SPRINGS — The writers of a new downtown visionary plan hope their draft doesn’t collect dust like so many other reports given to city government in the past few decades.

It’s the first time the Downtown Special Assessment District, which for 30 years mainly has worked behind the scenes on getting downtown sidewalks fixed and planting flowers, has stepped out with a public opinion on what the downtown should be.

The six-page draft, which has been distributed to City Council members with the hope they’ll eventually approve it and include it in the city’s Comprehensive Plan, is a broad view of downtown with the usual observations that the city needs to develop a parking plan, encourage private industry to offer parking for pay and continue to beautify the city’s entranceways.

“We’re not mandating specific things at this point; it’s all very general,” said Tim Mabee, chairman of the Downtown Special Assessment District.

More specifics will be added in the coming months, he noted, and that’s where people may disagree.

The district also advocates standardizing signs, streetlights and sidewalks throughout the downtown, using international symbols on signs where possible.

“We’re trying to help the city and help ourselves as well,” Mabee said. The district decided on its own to write the plan and started doing so in January.

Retired City Planner Geoff Bornemann and N. Fox Jewelers owner Harvey Fox are involved with the draft, and said there’s still room for growth in the downtown, although much of it is upward.

“There’s a lot more than you realize that the buildingscape could be changed or enhanced,” Fox said.

Mabee said he hopes that this plan would be adopted and stay the same regardless of who is in office.

“You don’t have to keep reinventing the wheel all the time,” he said. “We’re getting tired of committees that don’t seem to go anywhere.”

The district recommends that the city allow new or renovated commercial buildings to be more flexible in posting signs, planning building height and deciding where the front of the building sits on the lot.

Current zoning law in the city says buildings must hug the sidewalk and rise no more than 70 feet and prohibits signs that jut perpendicular from the building. The district would like to see the building height increased to 80 feet and perpendicular signs be allowed.

“We’re not looking for blinding, flashing, Las Vegas neon kind of lights. We just want a little variety.”

Allowing some buildings to have front yards also would create pocket parks throughout the city where people could rest and gather, the document says.

The plan also suggests the city work on becoming a World Heritage Site to attract people from other countries to visit.

The district would like public input on the document, which is expected to be posted soon on the city’s Web site, www.saratoga-springs.org. A public meeting on the document is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. May 29 in the City Council Chambers in City Hall.

Mabee said he hopes to bring the document back to the Special Assessment District for approving changes in July and then bring it before the City Council in September for approval.