Greencastle asks for resident's help with comprehensive plan

Friday, August 9, 2024 at 7:26 AM

By Paul Gable

The plan will help outline Greencastle's goals and objectives for the next 10-20 years.

For the first time in over two decades, the city of Greencastle is embarking on a comprehensive plan, which is aimed at laying out the future for the city.

The plan will help outline Greencastle's goals and objectives for the next 10-20 years, according to city officials.

Currently, the city is conducting a survey that touches on what the city's top assets are, what people think are the top challenges, top amenities, and what people tell others about Greencastle, among other topics. The survey can be taken at www.surveymonkey.com/r/H6RPRB6.

Greencastle Mayor Lynda Dunbar said the plan is a vision of what the city could possibly look like.

"It's ironic we have this announcement with the Lilly Grant, and we are doing a comprehensive plan for the future and it encompases so many things. I have a steering committee selected and it is a really diverse group that I am excited about. We have younger and older, different professions coming together to make major changes to our city," Dunbar said.

Dunbar said the comprehensive plan is one of several exciting things taking place in Greencastle, noting the ongoing housing study goes hand-in-hand with the comprehensive plan.

"We are working on the vision and what the city of Greencastle will look like," said Dunbar, who said stakeholder meetings will happen soon. "There is a lot of community input, and I ask citizens to take the survey and let their opinions be heard."

Greencastle City Planner Scott Zimmerman echoed those sentiments.

"We are just kicking off the public input process to be able to evaluate and update our comprehensive plan. We want people to let us know what the current issues are the city can make plans for, how our development standards need to address what we want to be as a city," Zimmerman said.

As the city planner, Zimmerman said he deals with people who often feel the city's development standards do not meet the current needs.

"Then we need to figure out how to change those. We have updated our zoning code a couple of times through the years but maybe it just needs a total rethink," Zimmerman said.