Posted on January 8, 2019
Author Jacque Ryan, WKVI
Officials in North Judson are seeking public assistance to secure funding in order to comprise an updated Comprehensive Plan, as the Town’s hasn’t been amended for more than 20 years.
KIRPC Community Development Planner Emily Albaugh appeared before the town council on Monday and informed them that North Judson did not receive the Office of Community and Rural Affairs grant they applied for in November.
She explained that the state is currently going through a transitional period and they’re now scoring their planning grant applications the same way they score construction grants. Albaugh said that made the process a bit more competitive and added a few new requirements.
Some feedback the Town received from OCRA was that there wasn’t enough community input in the initial application.
In order to gather more responses from the public, a survey has been comprised which asks citizens to reflect on various items related to North Judson and the necessity of a comprehensive plan. That survey can be accessed on the Town of North Judson Facebook Page.
While the Town Council recently decided to take action about the comprehensive plan because of a requirement for the Regional Stellar Initiative, they’re apparently long overdue for an update according to Albaugh and Clerk-Treasurer Andrew Rowe.
Rowe commented, “It’s been a long time since we’ve had one, so that’s a part of it too, just having a direction to look toward is a big deal.”
Albaugh added, “And we looked it up, 1956 was the original comprehensive plan and it was amended in, I believe, 1998 is what we were able to find…so there’s a definite need.”
Printed copies of the survey can be picked up at North Judson Town Hall. The online survey will be open until this Friday at noon.
Albaugh said she will be in town that day to collect the hard copies and take some photos to include in the application, which is another new requirement.
While a few changes were made to account for the new scoring, the conditions in the application will remain the same. In order to cover the cost of the $44,000 Comprehensive Plan project, the Town is applying for $39,600 Community Development Block Grant that would require a local match of $4,400
Albaugh said that the adjusted grant application will be resubmitted on January 15th and the award announcement should be made by the end of the month or in early February.
Click the following link to directly access North Judson’s Comprehensive Plan survey.
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