EATON — During its Monday, Feb. 20, meeting, Eaton City Council adopted the city’s updated comprehensive development plan.
Work on updating the plan, a process entitled “Elevate Eaton,” began last year and included work by a steering committee and several public meetings.
The updated plan has four main goals: maintaining Eaton’s small-town identity through managed growth, expanding opportunities in support of a strong economic base, supporting downtown Eaton as the center of the community and leveraging resources to ensure strong infrastructure and amenities.
In its introduction, the plan notes, this “update is intended to streamline the document to focus on critical background data and recommendations. These goals and the recommendations of this plan build off and modernize past planning goals and recommendations. They also are aligned with regional planning efforts that recognize the City of Eaton as a central location for residential, commercial, and industrial development.”
What is a comprehensive plan?
The document notes: “A comprehensive plan is a planning tool that evaluates various aspects of the City and establishes a series of policies to help guide future decisions about the physical, economic, environmental, and social aspects of the City. Comprehensive plans are general in nature and are purposely long-term, recognizing that some visions cannot be achieved immediately but take years to accomplish. Other than the future land use plan, this plan does not make recommendations about the future of specific properties.
“Even within the future land use plan, the plan is merely a guide to community leaders on the vision of Eaton over the next 10 to 20 years. All of the background information, goals, and recommendations can be used by city decision-makers, property owners, business owners, and even regional agencies to make decisions based on what the community desires to be in the long-term future. The adoption of this plan does not change any laws or zoning regulations as they apply to the City, nor does it mean that the City will aggressively pursue annexation where future growth areas are discussed. It does, however, provide guidance for future changes that may be made to city policies, laws, and regulations in the future.”
It continues: “The City of Eaton has been proactive in its planning efforts, having developed its first comprehensive plan in 1967 with complete updates in 1989, 1994, and 2003. In addition, since 2003, the City has undertaken updates to the land use plan map that is a part of the 2003 plan. The City has continued to actively use its comprehensive plan as a guide for making policy decisions. As such, it must continually gauge whether the adopted goals and policies reflect its citizens’ current desires.
“For this 2023 Comprehensive Plan, the City engaged the assistance of Local Gov Consultants and Compass Point Planning to assist in the planning process, which included the development of a project website (www.ElevateEaton.com) to keep residents apprised of the planning effort. The process also included a series of public meetings where residents and business owners were invited to discuss what they felt were important issues that the plan should address. The public engagement began in June 2022, when the City hosted an engagement tent at the Eaton Community Fun Fest. The goal of that outreach was to let people know about the project, dates for upcoming meetings, and ask them to help identify what they love about Eaton. This event was followed by public meetings and an open house in July, October, and November 2022.
“The meetings were all interactive and sought out insight into what residents and businesses wanted to continue or change in the City. At the October 2022 public meeting, the discussion focused on three strategic areas, including future land uses, downtown, and quality of life in Eaton. All of the information and feedback gathered showed a general consensus that the City is on already moving forward in a positive direction but that there is undoubtedly a desire to see more housing options, downtown and park improvements, and more community events, just to name a few ideas that consistently arose out of the process.
“In addition to the general public outreach, the City also utilized a steering committee consisting of City Council members, Planning Board members, and representatives of the community at large. The committee’s purpose was to help delve into questions that arose from the data analysis phase and provide input on recommendations from the public meetings. They also provided a preliminary review of the draft plan before presentation to the public as part of the adoption process.”
The full plan is available for download on the city’s website, www.cityofeaton.org, or at www.elevateeaton.com.
Reach Eddie Mowen Jr. at 937-683-4061 and follow on Twitter @emowenjr.
