The Town of Hamlet will soon be able to get to work on a comprehensive plan. The town council held a public hearing Wednesday on the funding arrangements.
Kankakee-Iroquois Regional Planning Commission Executive Director Edwin Buswell said the plan will cost $44,000. The town’s planning to apply for grant funding from the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs to cover 90 percent of that, leaving $4,400 that will have to be covered by the town. “The planning grants are non-competitive, so as long as we meet a minimum score, it’ll be funded,” Buswell explained. “The town has gone through a selection process and selected HWC [Engineering] consultants to do the actual planning study, so they’ll get started as soon as we get the grant awarded.”
But that might take slightly longer than originally expected. Buswell said that in order to be scored this month, the application has to be submitted by the end of the week. However, the town council isn’t expected to finalize the required Fair Housing and Drug and Alcohol ordinances until next Wednesday. That means the application might not end up getting scored until January. Buswell said similar applications from North Judson and Starke County were supposed to be scored last month but were delayed to this month.
Communities around the county are creating or updating comprehensive plans, in preparation for a potential regional Stellar Community application. The original goal was to apply next year, but it may end up being pushed back to 2020, depending on how long it takes to complete the comprehensive plans.
Council member Brian Earnest said the plan will be a good thing for Hamlet to have, in any case. “Even if the Stellar doesn’t come of it right away, it’s great to have a comprehensive plan on file for any town, moving forward,” he said, “to get the opinions of our citizens on what we’d like to see done in the near future.”
No objections to the grant application were voiced during Wednesday’s hearing.
