Detroit to vote on comprehensive plan panel

DETROIT – A special town meeting will be held at 6 tonight to decide on creating a comprehensive planning committee that will undertake the challenging job of creating such a plan for the town by March.

Selectmen say a plan is necessary before the town can proceed to apply for state funds and assistance. The lack of a plan has held up construction of a new fire station planned at the town office property.

Selectman Joseph Schissler said Monday that the issue is simple: In order to obtain grants and loans, a plan is required by state law.

“Plans for the new fire station have already been drawn up,” he explained. “We have a site all marked out, right here on the town lot.”

But when the town began the process of applying for a Community Development Block Grant for construction, officials discovered that grant funds are linked to the community’s comprehensive plan.

The last time anyone even thought about working on such a plan was in 1989, said Joan Bradley of the Detroit Planning Board. “We did a survey and actually began the process,” she said Monday. “But when we looked at the state’s requirements, we decided we needed professional help. It is a massive undertaking.”

The issue was abandoned, she said.

Bradley said planning board members and selectmen recently had a joint meeting to determine a course of direction.

Currently, said Schissler, independent consultant Peter Lyford, formerly of the Kennebec Valley Council of Governments, is assisting the town in preparing a plan.

The special town meeting vote is asking that a resident-based committee be created and that $6,015 is appropriated as the local match to a state planning grant of up to $18,039. The $3-for-every-$1 return would allow the committee to hire a consultant, create maps, if necessary, and otherwise create a plan.

In addition, voters will decide on spending $953 to join the Kennebec Valley Council of Governments, which can provide unlimited expert assistance to the town during the plan’s creation.

“This is a huge job, a big job,” admitted Schissler, who added that the March deadline would certainly be challenging.

A fourth article on the special town meeting warrant would abolish the town’s cemetery committee, which has largely been inactive since the death of Chairman Edwin Leighton earlier this year. “He did a wonderful, wonderful job for us,” said Schissler, but added that the town clerk and the selectmen have essentially been doing the committee’s work.

“We have had maps drawn and built three new roads into the Village Cemetery,” said Schissler.

The special town meeting is set for 6 p.m. at the Dorothy R. Cookson School Town Hall on Route 69.