Gary McDaniel
HANCOCK COUNTY – A new comprehensive plan got its final approval from county leaders, setting in place a guide they’ll consult to determine how unincorporated areas develop over the next two decades.
The decision culminates a process that began around June 2021, when the county approved $234,000 and the Hancock County Community Foundation contributed $16,000 to enlist Vandewalle & Associates, with offices in Madison and Milwaukee in Wisconsin and Columbus, Ohio, to assist with the plan. Efforts also included a local steering committee as well as public input gathered from several events and a website.
The plan outlines goals and aspirations for how the county will develop as far as aspects like housing, land use, transportation, recreation and infrastructure. Leaders will use it when making decisions regarding development and growth. It’s designed to last over the next 20 years, with updates recommended along the way.
At nearly 200 pages, the plan is split into chapters addressing conservation, agriculture and natural resources; housing; land use and growth management; an economic development strategy; a thoroughfare plan; community livability; intergovernmental cooperation; and implementing the plan.
It also includes a future land use map recommending land uses to guide officials’ deliberations as development proposals come forward.
The Hancock County Area Plan Commission gave the comprehensive plan a positive recommendation last year, but the county commissioners delayed their consideration in order to give time for new county planning director Kayla Brooks and new county commissioner Gary McDaniel to review the document.
“I think it’s a very well thought out plan,” Brooks said at a commissioners meeting this week. “It really took into consideration the thoughts of the many different resident groups of the county, and it’s dealt with some very difficult issues in Hancock County where there’s a lot of friction right now. Change is hard. This plan looks forward to 2042 and has to make a best guess as to which direction we should head regarding different areas of planning and land use and growth, so it’s doing the best it can with what it can discover.”
The county’s planning efforts have received criticism from residents in recent years over the surge in development on the county’s west side, much of which has involved large buildings designed for logistics purposes.
The new comprehensive plan replaces one that had been in place since 2005 and updated in-house in 2012.
“What’s really more frightening than looking at change and how difficult that is to look at is dealing with an outdated plan that we all know now is kind of done in,” Brooks said. “…It leaves the planning department in a very tricky situation as far as rezoning amendments and things like that that are coming in.”
County commissioners McDaniel, Bill Spalding and John Jessup voted 3-0 to adopt the plan.
McDaniel, a former Greenfield City Council member and Greenfield Plan Commission member, said when he reviewed the plan he noticed similarities between it and the comprehensive plan the city recently adopted.
“I just understand it to be a road map, not a definite, but it gives us a way forward,” he said.
Spalding, who up until recently served on the county’s plan commission, said he appreciated all the input that went into the plan.
“Not just a few people that said yes and no to different things, but many, many people that really took a lot of time to make a plan that will hopefully last us the next 20 years as a guide,” he said.
The plan is available at futurehancock.com.
The plan also goes to the town councils for Shirley and Spring Lake for approval because both towns are members of the county’s area plan commission. Shirley Clerk-treasurer Teresa Hester said the council there approved the plan. The Daily Reporter was unable to confirm whether Spring Lake has.
