After nearly 10 months of meetings and discussions, Logansport’s new comprehensive plan took a big step forward Monday.

The Logansport Planning Commission unanimously approved a first draft of the plan, which will now move to the city council for approval on May 4.

Planning director Stan Williams said the plan covered all of the main areas the city hoped to address when it entered the process last June.

“We are very, very pleased with the process and the draft document which represents a vision that the residents of Logansport have put together,” Williams said. “This will be a useful tool as we look to move Logansport on to a more prosperous future.”

The plan emphasizes three guiding principals — sustainable land use, a diverse economy and high quality of life to benefit both the economic and social well-being of the community — within nine key areas — land use, housing and neighborhoods, downtown revitalization, quality of life, economic development, transportation, parks and greenways, public facilities and services, and the natural environment.

Every area includes a list of goals that planners hope can be realized in the next 10 to 20 years, with the document itself including both an executive summary of its major points and detailed descriptions in the latter pages.

Some of the plan’s highlights include revitalizing downtown with an emphasis on the arts, reviewing the city’s one-way streets, an emphasis on preserving and restoring the existing housing stock, addressing the housing needs of low and moderate income residents, creating a multicultural atmosphere that makes newcomers to the community feel welcome, encouraging healthy living, capitalizing on the opportunities offered by Ivy Tech to train and re-train the workforce, keeping the city technologically current, increasing financial resources available to parks and recreation and planning for future use of renewable energy.

Kevin Gardiner, the consultant hired by the city to compile the plan, said one of his primary tasks when he took on the project was to produce a user-friendly document.

He said he hopes the public will remain engaged as the plan is implemented over the next few years.

“We are really pleased with the level of participation from the community,” Gardiner said. “The plan does a good job of collecting the information that the public articulated to us about how they want to see the future of their community.”

Gardiner admitted, though, that there was still some work to be done on the economic development side of the plan before it is submitted as a finished document.

Bob Kirkwood, a board member of the Logansport Chamber of Commerce, confirmed the board would be sitting down in the next few days to thrash out suggestions for these revisions and would continue to work closely with Gardiner.

Williams said that work also needed to be done on implementing the goals of the plan in various city departments and local non-profit organizations such as Logan’s Landing, the Cass County Arts Alliance and Logansport Art Association.

He said he expected further readings of the plan by the Plan Commission before a state deadline of May 31.

Mayor Mike Fincher also offered his endorsement of the plan, praising the hard work by the planning department and community members.

He said the plan was intended to be used as a working document that is accessible to both current and future generations.

“We brought in a company that has never worked in Indiana before because we wanted to be different from other communities,” Fincher said. “We wanted a plan that is easy to understand and follow, and we got that.”

Williams said that the planning department had already received online comments from citizens about the document.

He encouraged others to read it and offer their thoughts both during the public forum at next week’s city council meeting and in the coming years.

“This is a live document that we want to constantly change and update,” Williams said. “It is never too late for the public to comment on the comprehensive plan.”

Kevin Smith can be contacted at (574) 732-5148 or via e-mail at kevin.smith@pharostribune.com



Want to go?

What: The Logansport City Council will hold a public forum on the city’s new comprehensive plan

When: 5 p.m. Monday

Where: City council chambers, second floor of the City Building