MARQUETTE, Mich. (WLUC) – Marquette City officials say four aspects of the community master plan have become top priorities.
As previously reported, the city is in the process of updating its master plan. Marquette City Planner David Stensaas said the first topic is housing.
“It is a huge question and issue in the community, and how we deal with that is not just the city’s own issue to address, but we have a partner at NMU that has a lot of housing and has a lot of people that need housing,” Stensaas said.
Stensaas added that plans are in the works to increase housing in the city by partnering with other agencies.
Marquette City Manager Karen Kovacs said housing solutions also tie into the second subject of interest, land use. Specifically, re-development at the former hospital site.
“The city’s role in that is to help facilitate that process and what I think the community is going to start seeing is more conversation about the community development block grant that is going to be coming forward,” Kovacs said. “The city would be applying for those funds to assist with blight elimination of those buildings.”
Third, Stensaas said finding open land to boost economic development is also a focus in developing the new master plan.
“Where we might find more industrial areas for manufacturing or industrial use because we don’t have a lot of that in the community. And tourism is becoming something we really need to start planning for more, it’s having a big impact on the city in a lot of ways,” Stensaas said.
Finally, the city is looking to be proactive about environmental protection.
“Looking at where we are with climate change and making sure that we are setting ourselves up for the future… it’s talking about some of these small steps that we can be made within our city to fulfill needs in the community,” Kovacs said.
Before making these plans a reality, the steering committee decides what to prioritize.
“We’ll look at where those common themes are and where we’re starting to hear some real interest come out and start putting those into goals and metrics,” Kovacs said.
Then, it comes down to the planning commission.
“There’s several layers of approval and comment in that too. the community is going to be apprised of many of these steps too,” Kovacs said.
To get updates directly from the city on the process of updating its master plan click here.
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