Plano City Hall, at war for more than three years with a group of residents fed up with their community’s rapid growth, has set a vote for later this month that could repeal its much-criticized master development plan and end the lawsuit it inspired.

Assuming the truce holds between the city and plaintiffs in the Plano Tomorrow lawsuit, this compromise is a mighty step forward. Protracted litigation with constituents isn’t healthy for any community — especially one such as Plano that is increasingly dealing with big-city challenges.

Based on my conversations with many Plano residents in recent months, the Plano Tomorrow lawsuit symbolizes what they see as local leaders who don’t listen to their concerns. City Hall had long maintained that it had the facts on its side in the lengthy legal battle, but it has long been losing the public relations war.

With every month the lawsuit has dragged on, seemingly more residents have lost trust.

The City Council, with new faces just put into office by disgruntled voters in a nasty election season, and the Planning and Zoning Commission will meet in a joint session July 22 to examine big changes to the Plano Tomorrow plan. A public hearing will follow for residents to provide feedback on the proposed changes.

The revised blueprint, the result of a six-hour meeting Wednesday between the two sides in the master plan lawsuit, would reinstate the city’s 1986 land-use guidelines.

Plano City Manager Mark Israelson told me Thursday the mediation "provided an opportunity for both sides to engage in a meaningful conversation." He is hopeful that the recommendation to the council and P&Z commission provides a path forward for all sides.

City Attorney Paige Mims told me earlier that the city reached out to the other side after the Texas Supreme Court on May 10 declined — for a second time — to hear Plano’s appeal of the case.

The meeting seems to have met its goal: Finding middle ground on a comprehensive development document that city planning staff can work with and disenchanted residents can support.

The plaintiffs’ attorney, Jack Ternan, told me Thursday that the lawsuit would become moot — and thus closed — if the council approves the amended plan.

Four of the five plaintiffs attended Wednesday’s meeting, including Beth Carruth, whose petition — with more than 4,000 signatures — is at the core of the lawsuit.

Teernan said the proposed changes discussed Wednesday are “an attempt to engage with people who signed the petition and try to address their concerns in a more constructive way than has been happening in the past.”

“The ball is in their [city’s] court” as far as the specific ways that the 1986 planning document and elements of the Plano Tomorrow plan would be combined, Ternan said.

The City Council approved the original Plano Tomorrow plan in October 2015 after what it described as a several-years-long listening tour involving thousands of residents in a variety of venues, including online surveys and formal hearings. Leaders revised the plan at least twice to appease residents who were worried that it would lead to more apartments and big developments that would erode Plano's suburban atmosphere.

But many of those residents still felt they weren't heard. Riled up about the growth of apartments and loosely united under the name Plano Future, they continued to flood the city with complaints and conflict-of-interest accusations.

Soon after the plan passed, Carruth, a Plano Future member, submitted the petition demanding the council repeal its action — or let voters decide Plano Tomorrow’s fate. The city secretary denied the document on the grounds that development plans such as Plano Tomorrow fall outside the bounds of referendum votes.

Most recently, the Texas Supreme Court denied Plano a rehearing on its request for the court to rule that the city secretary is immune from legal action for performing her duties.

Municipal governments across the state have closely watched the Plano Tomorrow lawsuit for its precedent-setting ramifications. If visions for overall land use, created by democratically elected officials, can be overturned by referendum, cities all over North Texas could face disarray as development is stopped in its tracks.

The lawsuit created drama not just in Plano but in Austin as well. In an unusual change of heart back in November, Attorney General Ken Paxton’s legal team filed a motion to withdraw an amicus curiae brief in support of Plano’s legal position -- just one day after it submitted the document. The office never gave any reason for its action beyond saying the brief was "erroneously submitted."

Just months later, Gov. Greg Abbott injected himself into the Plano City Council races when he endorsed candidates Shelby Williams and Lily Bao. The two candidates, both of whom won their runoffs against opponents backed by Mayor Mayor Harry LaRosiliere, have generally sided with residents’ concerns about the city’s pace of growth.

Now Plano desperately needs to get back to a focus on local problems and how to resolve them.

Bringing this deeply divided city together should be the new council’s top priority with emotions still raw on both sides after the bare-knuckled brawl of an election season. That starts with leaders doing the next smart thing to resolve the Plano Tomorrow lawsuit.

The overwhelming majority of Plano residents love their city, even if they have different ideas about how it should grow.

And if the plaintiffs in the Plano Tomorrow lawsuit and the city they have sued genuinely have found a a compromise that both sides can live with, the real healing can begin.