Belleville planners move forward to rewrite city Master Plan

The Nov. 14 meeting of the Belleville Planning Commission started off as a non-meeting, without a quorum. Assistant City Manager Steve Jones advised the four members present that they could discuss things but take no votes without a quorum, so they discussed items on the agenda for 23 minutes.
Then, a fifth commissioner, John Juriga, arrived with apologies and the meeting officially began.
After calling the meeting to order, commissioners approved the agenda and minutes from the last meeting and then Andrew Aamodt, senior planner from Giffels Webster, continued with the report he was giving on how the new Master Plan would be established.
He laid out plans for getting input from the residents on who they are and what they want to see in the city. The first survey runs Nov. 15 to Dec. 4. It is based on the Local Economy and is available at www.engage.giffelswebster.com/belleville-master-plan .
Paper copies of the surveys will be available at city hall, he said.
Aamodt said the meeting schedule and other information will also be available on the website.
The next survey will be on Housing and will run Dec. 5 to Feb. 3. Transportation and Infrastructure will run Feb. 4 to March 3 and Sustainability is March 4-31.
Public meetings are also to be scheduled to talk to people in person on their ideas.
The commission decided to have the Master Plan completely rewritten to replace the former plan that was written in 2006 and amended since then. The city council on July 15 approved paying longtime planning consultant Giffels Webster $26,650 to rewrite the document. Work on the year-long project began in October with a joint meeting of the planning commission, city council, and downtown development authority.
Aamodt said they plan four public input opportunities at the December, February, March, and April commission meetings.
Assistant City Manager Jones said the residents have said in other surveys that what they want first- or second-most is a grocery store, but the city has been unable to get one.
Commissioners agreed that there needs to be a map presented to survey-takers to show where the city limits of Belleville are so they know if they are residents of Belleville or not.
The survey invites participation from city residents, those who work in the city, and those who have interests in the city.