Comprehensive plan nearly ready
 to go to commissioners

(9/4)  The Emmitsburg Comprehensive Plan is nearly ready to go to the Emmitsburg Board of Commissioners for their review and approval. The final plan will be the guiding document for the growth and development of Emmitsburg for the next 20 years.

“Our board is 99.99 percent complete with the plan,” said Larry Little, Emmitsburg Planning Commission chairman.

The commission will hold a public hearing on its version of the plan on Monday, Sept. 22 at 7:30 p.m. At that time, interested parties can speak on what they like or don’t like about the plan. The draft plan can be reviewed at the town office or on the town’s Web site.

Little said the commission is glad that the plan is nearly ready to go to the town commissioners.

“They’re glad it’s over,” he said. “It’s been a long drawn-out process.”

The planning commission will take comments from the public hearing and make any final adjustments to the plan by Sept. 29. At that point, they hope to vote to approve the draft to be presented to the town commissioners.

“Depending on what they do with it, the plan could come to us as early as our meeting on Oct. 6,” said Mayor James Hoover.

He said the commissioners will need to refamiliarize themselves with the plan, but he doesn’t expect any contentious issues.

“I don’t foresee us taking an excessive amount of time with it,” Hoover said. “I would hope we take the time necessary, though.”

He said he would guess it would take four or five meetings to work through everything and approve the plan. On this schedule, the new plan could be in effect by the new year.

However, because this plan took so long to approve, town officials will only be able to rest a couple years before beginning work on the next update.