I am Jeff Rea, your host for Economic Outlook.

Thanks for joining us.

We help you make plans each week to tune in on WNIT, WNIT2, online at WNIT.org or listen to our podcast of the show on most major podcast platforms.

St. Joseph County is in the midst of the development of a comprehensive plan.

We'll take a closer look at that process, talk about how you can be involved and what it means for the future of the county.

And we'll dive deeper into why tools like this are critical for communities coming up on Economic Outlook.

Before we get started here at WNIT, we're respecting social distancing and as such have both our hosts and our guests joining us today virtually instead of in person.

Comprehensive plans are done by communities around the country to help identify and recommend actions relevant to current and future needs of the area.

St. Joseph County is currently in the middle of their plan update and has been soliciting input ahead of the completion of that plan in 2023.

Today on the show, we'll dive deeper into the development of that plan and why a tool like that plan is so critical for communities.

Joining me for that conversation are Abby Wiles, the executive director of the St. Joseph County Area Plan Commission, and Cynthia Bowen, a partner and director of planning at Rundell Ernstberger Associates.

Guys, thank you for joining me today.

Thank you.

Great.

Well, we're--I'm--I've been excited watching a little bit and participating in some of the discussion about the comprehensive plan.

And so we're excited to share a little bit more with the community about it today.

So thanks for joining me for that conversation.

Cynthia, let me come your way to just so--so people know who you are.

First, tell us a little bit about your--what your role is and what Rundell Ernstberger Associates does.

Well, thank you, Jeff.

I appreciate it.

And thank you for having us here.

So I work for Randall Ernsberger and Associates, and we are a planning and urban design landscape architecture firm out of Indianapolis, who--we're private consultants, who communities hire all across the Midwest and U.S. to do these types of policy plans.

And what we're doing here is St. Joseph County has hired us to prepare a policy document to help figure out at the essence of how the community grows, where it should grow, in what type of manner over the next twenty years.

And--and we look at such things as what that growth should be.

You know, how do you attract residents?

How do you attract--attain or retain residents?

And what type of jobs do you want to attract to the community?

Where, and what sectors?

Where should that be?

And, you know, what are those things that you need?

What--what is that quality of place and what does that quality of life need to be in?

What are those types of things?

And so that's what we look at.

So we look at it from a policy perspective.

We look at it from a design perspective, we look at it from a quality of life.

So, you know, health care, daycare, things to do, entertainment, places to eat, places to go.

So all of those things come together and are really kind of spelled out into a comprehensive plan.

So I've spent the last twenty-five-plus years helping communities do that, and I think it's a lot of fun.

Great.

Well, thank you.

And look forward to--we'll drive a little deeper into a couple of those topics.

Abby, we'll come your way for a second.

Talk a little bit about the Area Planning Commission and what your role is there.

Sure.

I'm the director of the St. Joe County Area Plan Commission.

Area Plan Commission is housed within the Department of Infrastructure Planning and Growth, which includes public works and engineering, economic development, surveying, planning and zoning as well as code enforcement.

I came into that role in August of 2020, and the leadership of the county, all of our elected officials and the community members at that time had described the need for a new comprehensive plan as mission critical, something that we needed to get going on ASAP.

So, right away we started the process of going through--going through a public procurement process to bring on a consultant to help us with the development of the plan.

In regards to the Area Planning Commission in general, we serve unincorporated St. Joseph County as well as our five member towns that are North Liberty, Lakeville, Roseland, Osceola and New Carlisle, South Bend, Mishawaka.

Each have their own planning departments and are not members, but we coordinate with them, of course.

Great.

Thanks, Abby.

Appreciate that.

So yeah, look forward to diving a little deeper into that.

Cynthia, I want to come back your way.

And so--so as we're talking just holistically about comprehensive planning and we're thinking about, you know, the action that St. Joseph County's doing here, how common is this?

Are all communities doing this?

Should all communities do this?

You've mentioned for twenty-five years you're doing this.

My guess is you--some elected leaders say, you know, just--just go do the work.

Others see the value in putting a roadmap together, just talk just generally, I guess, about communities and how they address this.

Well, I think it's a critically important area to be doing.

And so, yeah, most communities do do this, they undertake this process because really what a comprehensive plan does is it spells out what you need to do; the type, the location and the quality and the future--future of your community.

It--it really is the vision for where you want to be for the next twenty years.

And it really guides your elected and appointed officials.

It tells your staff what you want to do.

And it really helps elected leaders and the public know where you want to--where your priorities are, where you want to invest your resources.

So it also, you know, you line up your investments, your communities line up their investments, their budgets, their, you know, those hard earned tax dollars where that should be spent and how that should be spent.

You know, what type of infrastructure investments, you know how they want to spend on parks and recreation and trails, what kind of sewer and water improvements need to be made.

So all those things that, you know, maybe residents don't think about on a day to day need that are certainly important for for you carrying out your daily living.

And so certainly communities need to be doing this because this is what attracts businesses, industries, residents to a community.

Great.

Abby, let me come your way.

You mentioned as you got hired and came into this role that county leadership had identified this as an important priority for the county.

The last plan had been done, I think, in what, 2002 or so.

So it had been--had been a few years.

As you start thinking about this process, talk about some of the things that were important to the elected officials and to--to you and your team, as you were putting--putting a strategy together toward development of the plan.

Yeah.

So I think front and center, what has taken--what has been front and center in a lot of our public meetings is the shifting of--of lands in St. Joe County from agricultural to other uses, and the need to look at what areas are appropriate for development and what areas should really be preserved.

Even though we've had a lot of discussions publicly about industrial rezonings, a lot of the land that we're seen as being lost to development for--from agricultural rezonings to others are not necessarily industrial.

We've seen a lot of rezonings and subdivisions over the last several years that have gone from agricultural to residential.

We've seen land use trends shift over major corridors as the new 31 has been built.

We've seen land use changing along the Capital Avenue corridor since that was built.

That was something that was discussed at length in our last comprehensive plan and also with State Road 23, we've had a slew of rezonings up on State Road 23 to more intense uses.

So in some ways we are using a plan that is past its useful life in referencing what the land use should be for rezonings in all parts of the county.

Abby, I want to stay with you for a second because I think a little bit of--what I like about the process is, you know, the opportunity to look in your crystal ball and think about, you know, the next twenty years and what that might look like.

And I'm interested in looking back for a second.

How did we do 20 years ago?

Did--did--did--was the plan pretty accurate?

Did it help guide what we're doing?

You know, and only I ask the question because I think sometimes the criticism of strategic plans is--is people do them.

They put them on the shelf.

They never, you know, pay attention after that.

How do we do on the last one.

Cynthia Bowen, who is on the call today and is our consultant on the plan, has been up at public meeting saying 'Wow, you all really did follow your plan.

That's great.

There's a lot that we can tick off that's been accomplished'.

Jeff, you know, Capital Avenue.

You would have been involved in those plans.

That's something that was discussed in the last--last 2002 plan and some of the development that we are laying the groundwork for development, future development out in New Carlisle is something that also was discussed in the plan.

Looking forward.

You know, it's been interesting to see how public--public opinion and public sentiment is are things that we're seeing in this comprehensive plan versus in 2002.

One big thing that has struck me since we've started public input has been the desire for parks, trails and those quality of life amendment--amenities, excuse me.

I don't know that that is something that was fully discussed in the 2002 plan to the extent that we're seeing in the public meetings today.

Yeah.

Cynthia, let me--let me come your way for--for a second.

And so talk about this--you know, making these living, breathing, active things.

You've worked with a lot of communities across the country.

What are the--what are the characteristics that have, have made plans like this, living documents that have helped to help guide development in the area?

Are there--are there best practices or lessons that we can learn from what other--what we or others have done?

Yeah.

Most certainly, most certainly.

Well, I think what one of the biggest things is making sure that your implementation section within the plan is very strong.

And--and then the staff uses that every day, you know, when they're putting staff reports together to go to elected officials and they're able to cite the vision or the goals and the objectives within that staff report.

You know, talking about, you know, this is the advice contained within the plan.

And, you know, other--other mechanisms that we talk about is, you know, being able to go back and review, you know, pretty regularly on an annual basis or biannual basis where you're talking about, you know, this is where we--where we've gone in our comprehensive plan out here.

This is one of the things that Abby and her staff does is that they produce a report every year on what the building trends were, what, you know, what were those rezonings, what were the variances that have happened over the past year?

And so they're able to report to both the commissioners and to the Plan Commission as well as the BZA.

You know, this is what has taken course over the last year within the county and you know, what you need to do is go back and take a look at those things and then how that stacks up to what some of your goals and objectives were in the comprehensive plan.

And then check to see, you know, against where we're tracking on some of our demographics versus where we wanted to go with some of our goals and objectives.

And are we headed in the right direction?

Are we trending in the right way or are we--are we not?

And so one of the things that we need to make sure that we're doing in this particular plan is setting--setting some of those benchmarks.

So that way, as we--as we come up on some of these yearly or biannual goals that Abby is able to say, you know what, you know, we're meeting this or we're exceeding this, or I don't think we're quite going in the right direction.

So we need to kind of take a pause and see if we need to shift course or we need to change something in the plan.

Because just because we put it in the plan doesn't mean that we're going in the wrong direction.

It might mean that, hey, what we had in the plan isn't--isn't quite where we need to be going and we need to change the plan, not change the community, but change the plan.

Right.

Abby, let me come back your way a little bit because, you know, is--and I know that Abby's one of the most talented planners around, and Cynthia has great years of experience.

And you've got some quality elected leaders and some great people on the Area Planning Commission.

This isn't the Abby plan or Cynthia plan or elected official plan.

It's the community plan.

So--so talk a little bit about just the engagement of the public, you know, sort of the input that you--that you seek or have sought even, you know, again, so that--so that it is truly representative of what people in the community think.

I'm trying to think about how to--how to start tackling that question.

Well, one thing that always strikes me is that in my conversations with Cynthia managing the project, she'll frequently come back to me and say, 'You know, I thought we were going to take this approach with your project, but I think we need to do this instead as a result of all the public input that we've received'.

So we've had a number of citizens be very engaged in the process.

And in addition to the task force, we've added the concept of working groups.

So working groups of citizens, subject matter experts and staff to help really flesh out some--several topic areas within the plan.

And that's something that we didn't initially include in the project approach, but it's something that we've added as we've gotten further along in public engagement to give citizens the opportunity-- citizens, residents, community members in St. Joe County the opportunity to be more involved with the actual drafting of the plan.

So we are very nimble in how we're approaching the planning process due to public input and involvement from community members.

Cynthia, do you want to say anything about that before I move on to my next point?

Oh, yeah.

No, I think that's--that's great, Abby.

I mean, I think that's critical is, you know, making sure that we've--we wanted to make sure we have a process where we have listened, because I think that's critical when you have a comprehensive plan.

And to Abby's point, one of the things that we have--we've done frequently is made sure we've pivoted when--when we've gotten public input, making sure that, you know, we've had a meeting in the box.

So when we were doing that first community series meetings that people could check out if they couldn't attend the meeting and they couldn't go to the website to do public engagement through the website which was www.plansjc.com that then they could--they could always go to Abby's office and check out our meeting in the box.

But now coming--and coming to you soon.

In July, we're going to be releasing a date and we're going to start these working groups where anyone in the public, as well as some of our task force members and key stakeholders, will be able to join any one of our working groups that are associated with our pillars of the plan, which will be releasing on our website soon, that people will be able to help craft the goals and the recommendations that will be in the plan.

We have had that much interest in it.

And you know, Jeff, that's really what makes this a true community plan and really what will get this plan implemented and ensure that the county continues into that growth direction and keeps people engaged, is that if they're there as part of the process, you know, helping to craft these recommendations.

Abby, I'm going to come back your way, you said, because you had some other points.

Is there anything else you want to add to that?

Just that you had asked about community participation.

And we're responding to community participation not just with the planned content, but with being nimble on the planning process itself in terms of community participation.

And what we're hearing to that question, you know, and you asked earlier about the 2002 plan versus this plan.

You know, I don't know that housing was as front and center, the need for additional housing units and housing affordability in the market that we're--that we're in, right?

So that has been a theme throughout the entire planning process so far.

The need to continue efforts for environmental, environmental preservation and conservation.

And as I mentioned before, those quality of life amenities that maybe weren't as forefront in the public discussion twenty years ago, but they are now like parks, trails and recreation.

Cynthia, let me--let me come back your way, because we talked about this being ready probably maybe a year from now, right?

So in summer of 2023.

So you really have--you've been through a process where you, sort of, maybe have laid the early stages.

You mentioned some things coming in July and beyond.

Just help us walk through, you know, kind of what happens over the next twelve months or so before the final plan is ready for--for final approval.

Sure.

So we have entered into the visioning stage.

So the task force has worked on crafting that overall vision where the county needs to be in the next twenty years.

And so we're in the process of refining that.

They have identified those pillars that are really the various topics or the segments that will make up the comprehensive plan.

So we will have those already laid out.

We have--we're working on refining those definitions and, if you will, the kind of briefing booklets that will inform those working groups and providing to them the data that they need to be able to develop the goals and the recommendations.

So that will carry them from this summer into early fall.

And so once these--the public and the working the public working groups create those recommendations, those will come back to the task force.

Kind of over the winter here, they will refine those.

And so that's what we were calling kind of the framework phase.

So all of this working group and the refinement, what the task force and that will lead us into the winter.

And then the task force picks it back up there in the winter.

And that leads us in to kind of implementation.

And so from there, we will take it and then we'll--we'll put together a detailed implementation section from those recommendations and draft the plan, and then we'll come out in early spring back out to a public open house so that the public can see how all of those recommendations translate out into the various segments.

Because while there will be interplay between all of the working groups, you know, they'll still be working pretty independently.

And so we'll want to make sure that we get feedback from the public in between all of those.

And so then we'll finalize that into a final plan in early spring.

And then as we're rounding up into early summer, we will bring it home with--with adoption.

Great.

Abby, let me come your way.

You mentioned kind of in your introduction even the--the--the work you do not only with the unincorporated part of the county, but with the five towns that you serve as well.

But also that South Bend-Mishawaka kind of are a little different in terms of their own planning efforts.

Can you can you maybe speak a little bit more to--to the work with those towns to make sure the things are incorporated in and--and the interplay of how you--how you plug in the two bigger cities as well to--to what you're trying to do here.

Sure.

Well, and going back to that question of the plan being mission critical at the beginning of the conversation.

You know, what thing I left out is up until December 2019, South Bend was part of the Area Plan Commission and then South Bend elected to establish their own planning commission and planning department.

And that changed the makeup of the Area Plan Commission, which is another reason why the need for a comprehensive--a new comprehensive plan was deemed mission critical.

So I guess on a high level, you know, talking about what St. Joe County Area Planning Commission does, we are responsible for the overseeing the growth and development in the community in the unincorporated county.

So any project that is built goes through commercial plan review is reviewed by zoning.

Any property that is rezoned for a different use, anything that needs a variance from a development standard that can't be built within the existing zoning ordinance is reviewed through St. Joe County Area Plan Commission.

And then when I say we have our five member towns, they have their own zoning administrators.

But anytime there is a rezoning or a variance for a property that's located in one of our member towns, that also comes through the Area Plan Commission.

So even though our comprehensive plan is looking at the unincorporated areas of St. Joe County for our planning area, we have our five member towns that each have their own comprehensive plans and we want to be consistent with and coordinate with those comprehensive plans.

The way I've explained it to folks in the community is we don't want the county showing a bike trail coming here and another town showing the bike--that same bike trail coming here.

Right?

So it's different planning areas, but we want to make sure that if it's leaving, you know, it's in the county, in the unincorporated area, that it's coming into the town limits at the area where we're showing a future trail.

So the comprehensive plans have to be coordinated and consistent and it's really great timing.

We have two towns, New Carlisle and North Liberty, that are in the process of updating their own comprehensive plans.

Great.

So we're down to our last about three minutes or so.

So this has been a great discussion.

Cynthia, let's talk for just a second about, you know, not everybody agree--you know, some people want things to stay the same.

Some people think that things needed to change that use.

I'm sure you run the whole gamut on the public input.

Talk about trying to balance sort of the--the--those wide varying interests and how you incorporate the--the thoughts of both into--into a plan.

Well, so you try to listen to everything that you hear.

And then a lot of times my job is spent trying to educate everyone on how you balance all of those things and understanding that there is a give and take process into every choice and decision that you make that, you know, if you want to preserve farmland, then that means that you're not going to have land for housing or for economic development.

And that--and that means okay, that means we're going to have--it's not that you're not going to have land.

You're going to have less land.

And so that means then you're going to have to increase, then, density on the land that you have.

And then that means that's going to how--then it's going to affect the sewer and water in this capacity.

So it's--I spend a lot of time helping folks understand what the tradeoffs are between one decision and the other.

And so you have to do that in a variety of different ways, whether it's through pictures, it's through images, and it's also understanding what policy says.

So, you know, the most successful is when everyone feels like they've given up something in order to to get that balance.

And so sometimes that works, sometimes that doesn't.

Right.

So--so Abby, in our last 30 seconds or so, remind folks who--who want to pay more attention to the process or be involved in this process.

Where's the best place for them to kind of get up to speed with where you are and to plug in with what's going on plan?

plansjc.com.

Great.

Well, guys, thank you both so much for coming.

Sounds like a great process, a really important chance to look at the next twenty years of St. Joseph County.

I think hopefully some-- some good lessons for other communities even as they're watching.

They really appreciate this.

And we'll have you back as you near completion maybe to share some additional details.

But we really appreciate you taking some time today.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That's it for our show today.

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I'm Jeff Rea.

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