By DEBRA HAIGHT
ST. JOSEPH – Berrien County Planning Commission members will be busy in the first quarter of 2022 as they finish work on updating the county’s master plan.
Berrien County Community Development Director Dan Fette updated Berrien County Commissioners on the work done so far at the county board’s last Committee of the Whole meeting of 2021 on Dec. 16. People can find both his presentation and the results of the community survey done this fall on the county’s website.
Fette reminded county commissioners that state law requires counties and municipalities to update their master plans
every five years. In Berrien County’s case, the plan was last updated in 2015 and the new update process started in 2019 before the onset of the pandemic.
The process started up again in the spring of 2021 with a couple of steps taken, he said. The county board authorized the planning commission to hire the Williams & Works planning firm to help the county in the effort and work started to collect public input.
Public input was gathered primarily through an online survey people could take in August and September as well as interviews with local government leaders that finished up in early December. Fette said Williams & Works have been working with the county since then to analyze the survey and interview results.
“We had close to 2,200 respondents,” he said. “We were hoping for 3,000 but I still think we got meaningful results. Unlike the broadband survey we did which was to identify specific needs, this was more of an opinion survey.”
Fette gave the highlights of the survey results, including who answered the survey in terms of demographics. While over 60 percent of the survey respondents were between the ages of 36 and 65, over 17 percent were in the 26 to 35 age group and another 17 percent were age 66 or older.
“We did get more 26 to 35 year olds than we thought,” he said.
When asked why they’ve chosen to live in Berrien County, he reported that people gave a variety of answers ranging from safety and security to job opportunities, affordable housing, the area’s natural beauty and the chance for a small town lifestyle.
As for affordable housing, Fette said the majority of respondents said they’d like to see more single family housing on lots of either an acre or less or between one and five acres. “Unfortunately that’s the area where it’s most difficult to generate affordable housing,” he said.
People also said they’d like to see apartment/condo complexes, assisted living communities and mixed developments with residential and commercial in one building.
When asked what kinds of business would enhance economic development, he said the most popular answers were restaurants, specialty shops, regional shopping centers and agri-tourism/farm markets.
Fette encouraged everyone to look at the full 90 page document presenting the survey results. He said nearly all answered collected were put in the document which is-as noted above-on the county website.
He noted that the online survey also asked people’s opinions on more general topics of interest to the county as a whole. “We also have questions related to the county board’s priorities rolled into this survey and into the new plan,” he said.
Fette said the next step will be to draft a new proposed plan. He expects that process to start this month and run to April. Chapters will be written on subjects such as demographics, socio-economics, housing, transportation, education, spatial maps, land use and zoning.
“It’s probable that we will put in other chapters on subjects like broadband, public health, physical and community resiliency and recovery,” he said. “We will also have the county board priorities rolled into this plan.”
The final phase of the process will likely come in April when a draft plan is submitted to the county board. “You then have as much time as you want to review it or send suggestions back to the planning commission,” he said. “Approval of the new master plan is the last step.”
Fette said proposed new chapters of the plan will be presented to county commissioners as they are finished to give the county board more time for review.
After comments from county commissioners after Fette’s presentation, County Board Chairman McKinley Elliott directed county staff to also send the survey results as well as all draft proposals to local governmental leaders for their input.
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