Katie Clark, community planner with Taylor Siefker Williams Design Group, gave the Kosciusko County Redevelopment Commission an overview of the comprehensive plan for FORWARD Kosciusko.
Kosciusko County, the Kosciusko County Community Foundation, K21 Health Foundation and local communities joined forces to complete a one-of-a-kind update to the county’s current 1996 comprehensive plan, according to FORWARD Kosciusko’s website. Residents, community leaders and community organizations were asked to come together to discuss local challenges, identify unique community features and determine how Kosciusko County and the local communities can grow, evolve and improve.
Clark said they’ve spent the last year learning about the county and area communities and have gotten ideas of development from local people. A comprehensive plan really needs to come from the people and there have been a lot of one-on-one interviews, public workshops and conversations with area people, she said.
The comprehensive plan is really multiple plans in one, Clark said. There will be the county comprehensive plan that will be used by the Area Plan Commission predominately, which will be an assessment and recommendations for the unincorporated parts of the county. Each local community will each get their own comprehensive plan. It’s going to be a good tool for those communities because there will be grant opportunities since federal agencies look for comprehensive plans. The three communities that are different are Syracuse, Warsaw and Winona Lake as they have independent comprehensive plans. Taylor Siefker Williams Design Group is giving those three communities some suggestions to update their comprehensive plans.
All the recommendations started from identifying where collectively everyone wants to be, Clark said. Everyone generally was aspiring to become and embody this welcoming area that was full of thriving residents and successful businesses and organizations.
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