The Upper Eden Community Plan Group represents 17 Parish Councils across the Upper Eden area which lies within Eden District Council in Cumbria.
The plan includes policies on encouraging limited new development to help local people meet their own housing needs, as well as policies on housing on farms, housing for older people and broadband connections.
The referendum will ask voters "Do you want Eden District Council to use the Neighbourhood Plan for the Upper Eden Area to help it decide planning applications in the neighbourhood area?" said the Council in a statement.
The draft plan became the first neighbourhood plan in the country to be successfully examined under the Localism Act when an examiner recommended in December that the plan should proceed to referendum. The Council subsequently approved the draft plan for referendum in January.