Martinsville of tomorrow: How you can help guide the city's future development
MARTINSVILLE — With the completion of a five-mile stretch of I-69 through Martinsville, city officials are asking for community input as they look to update the city's comprehensive plan.
The city is partnering with HWC Engineering to update the planning document that is used to help shape the city's long-term vision for the future.
The survey results, coupled with community data, will serve as the framework for developing the comprehensive plan update.
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The city's comprehensive plan was last updated in 2017, before the completion of I-69 in Morgan County and one year after the completion of the Interstate 69 Economic Development Plan, which allowed the city to recommend to the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) access and roadway improvements that would best serve the interests of the community. This included the roundabout at Ohio Street.
The comp plan identified six planning goals for the city: community and quality of life, housing, land use, economic development, utilities and transportation and environmental and natural resources.
Gary Oakes, the city's director of planning and zoning, said the city will continue to prioritize affordable housing in the updated document, particularly as many of the city's developable areas are located in a floodplain — making it difficult to attract large-scale commercial and industrial employers.
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"We're really limited in what kind of business we can attract," Oakes said. "The focus has to be on homes. We're a bedroom community."
This phrase — "bedroom community" — has been a common refrain uttered by city officials. During Martinsville Mayor Kenny Costin's State of the City Address in March, he offered an optimistic vision for the city's future, invoking the term to describe the city's affordable housing options along with its close proximity to Indianapolis and Bloomington.
"Morgan County is the last donut county to get developed," Costin told audience members at the March event. "It's our turn for the county."
A few hundred homes are slated to be built in the coming years. In March, the city plan commission approved the first section of the Hanna Farms subdivision in the city's southeast side, where a total of 250 homes are planned, and an additional 150 homes are planned in the nearby Indian Creek Village subdivision.
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Mike Dellinger, executive director of the Morgan County Economic Development Corporation, said the city needs workforce housing and lower-income housing to attract more employers to the area.
"People that are on the rebound or the start in life need a place to live just as much as the affluents in our county, and we certainly need our service sector to help support our economy," Dellinger said. "We need housing for the young worker at TOA. We need housing for the young waitress at Indy’s, the downtown restaurants."
The online survey asks residents to rate the city on a number of factors, including land use, housing availability, transportation options and economic development opportunities.
The survey can be found at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Martinsville_CompPlan_Survey.
Contact reporter Peter Blanchard at 765-346-2942 or pblanchard@reporter-times.com. Follow him on Twitter @peterlblanchard.
This article originally appeared on The Reporter Times: City of Martinsville seeks input on update to comprehensive plan
