Public invited to BW Watershed presentation July 30 in Galena

The Vil­lage of Galena invites local res­i­dents and gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tives to attend a pre­sen­ta­tion by David Rut­ter, from the Mid-Ohio Regional Plan­ning Com­mis­sion, at the Village’s July 30 Coun­cil meet­ing at 7 p.m. Rut­ter will present the Big Wal­nut Water­shed Plan­ning Partnership’s recommendations.

Com­mu­nity rep­re­sen­ta­tives and stake­hold­ers in the Big Wal­nut Creek Water­shed worked together in a vol­un­tary effort to address the inter­re­lated issues of water qual­ity and eco­nomic com­pet­i­tive­ness. A major fea­ture of the result­ing Big Wal­nut Bal­anced Growth Plan is the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of the fol­low­ing pri­or­ity areas:

• Pri­or­ity Con­ser­va­tion Areas — Areas which are most crit­i­cal for protection;

• Pri­or­ity Devel­op­ment Areas — Areas which are par­tic­u­larly well-suited to devel­op­ment or rede­vel­op­ment; and,

• Pri­or­ity Agri­cul­tural Areas — Areas which are tar­geted for con­tin­ued or expanded agri­cul­tural activities.

In addi­tion to the pri­or­ity area maps, the Big Wal­nut Bal­anced Growth Plan also includes an imple­men­ta­tion tool­box con­tain­ing infor­ma­tion and resources for com­mu­ni­ties that choose to imple­ment com­po­nents of the plan.

The next step in the process is for juris­dic­tions in the plan­ning area to pass res­o­lu­tions of sup­port for the plan. MORPC will then sub­mit the plan to the state for endorse­ment. The state offers spe­cial incen­tives for com­mu­ni­ties included in the endorsed Bal­anced Growth Plans. These incen­tives can include extra points on grant appli­ca­tions, low-interest loans and more. Cur­rently, there are 28 state pro­grams that include spe­cial con­sid­er­a­tion for com­mu­ni­ties par­tic­i­pat­ing in Bal­anced Growth.

At its July meet­ing, Galena’s Vil­lage Coun­cil will hold a third read­ing on a res­o­lu­tion of sup­port for the Big Wal­nut Water­shed Plan­ning Partnership’s Bal­anced Growth Plan.

Posted by Gary Henery on Jul 18 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.