RFPs sent for Greenfield to update comprehensive plan

Greenfield’s city council took the first steps last week to potentially updating a decades-old comprehensive plan by sending out requests for proposals (RFPs) to firms who might be able to help them with the work.

The city learned that the state would fund the zoning study portion of the process, City Clerk Laura Wolfe said, but that requires the city bid out the comprehensive plan and zoning portions of the project individually.

“We’ll wait for them to come in, see how much the state will cover for us and go from there,” Wolfe said. Sending out RFPs is simply to gather information, at this point, she said.

A comprehensive plan is a long-range plan that a city uses to captures the vision of where the community wants to be at some point in the future.

After the May 21 tornado, a problem came up because there were properties were not zoned correctly, which for a short time, impacted the ability for building permits to be granted. There were houses on commercial lots and businesses on residential lots.

A large part of those talks related to FEMA reimbursement, and the city learned that zoning does not have an impact on property owners being reimbursed. Therefore, the city let property owners impacted by the tornado rebuild as they were, no matter the zoning, with the caveat that the city would come back and take necessary steps to correct those issues later. Rebuilding efforts, in some places, have begun.

It generally costs in more than $30,000 and takes more than a year to go through a zoning process.

RFPs are due back to the city by Aug. 7, which will give the city time to review them before an Aug. 13 council meeting.