Belleville considers master plan in joint meeting with consultants

At the beginning of a year-long project to create a new Master Plan, 11 members of the city of Belleville’s boards and commissions met together Oct. 2 with three planning consultants from Giffels Webster.
Under state law, the master plan has to be renewed every five years. It is the plan for the zoning ordinances that govern the city. The city’s last full rewriting of the master plan was in 2006, but it has been updated since then.
City Council had a bare quorum with Mayor Ken Voigt, and council members Julie Kissel and Randy Priest.
The Downtown Development Authority had two members present, Chris Donley and Sabrina Richardson-Williams, with Mike Gatteri by zoom.
Five members of the planning commission were present: chairman Michael Hawkins, Becky Hasen, Jim Courage, Mark Kowalski, and James O’Keefe.
Also present were principal planner Jill Bahm, Andy Aamodt, and Ava Miller of Giffels.
City Manager Jason Smith, assistant city manager Steve Jones, and clerk/treasurer Briana Hootman completed the participants.
Belleville Area Chamber of Commerce executive director Martha Hanoian was the only member of the public present, with the Independent observing.
Jill Bahm presented an overview of the process and a summary of the master plan. Then she and her assistants passed out pink and green sticky notes, asking participants to write the city’s best attributes on five green notes and the city’s weaknesses, each on a pink note.
When that was done, she stuck them on the wall in groups of like-minded thoughts.
The city’s assets included the lake, walkability, and its many events.
The city’s weaknesses included vacant retail buildings, traffic/sidewalks and a need for more golf carts (only 14 have registered their golf carts for driving in the city), apathy of residents, limited housing, deteriorating lakefront, nothing for young adults to do, no recreational sites within the city, and different organizations working in silos (separately, when they plan their events, which overlap each other).
Those attending were then divided into small groups to discuss the city’s opportunities and threats for an hour and then consensus on emerging issues was considered.
The two-hour meeting wrapped up and the next meeting considered in the long process will be announced.