LAPEL — With hopes of bringing future development and business to town, Lapel Town Council President Chad Blake recommended the town develop a new comprehensive plan.
Speaking at the council’s May 21 meeting, Blake said the last comprehensive plan was done in 2009 and the town has missed out on opportunities because is doesn’t have a current plan.
“Because we don’t have that comprehensive plan, the planning commission and the redevelopment commission, they don’t know what the town’s goals (and) plans are,” Blake said.
Council members voted unanimously at the meeting to begin investigating the need for a new plan.
“The comprehensive plan is kind of the direction, on paper, on how a town wants to develop, grow and what things go where,” Blake said. “Comprehensive plans are typically expensive. I know there are grants available, but the time to get a grant to get the plan done, we could lose valuable developments as people want to come out and build with us.”
Among the initial dialogue for the plan was the use of the Cascadden Fund to help pay for it. The Cascadden Fund is a trust left in 2015 by the late Olevia Cascadden to be used for town improvements. Currently, the fund includes $242,684.
Return to OCRA
After sitting out the last round, Lapel plans to apply for an Office of Community and Rural Affairs (OCRA) grant during the next cycle. The town is looking for aid to help fund wastewater improvements.
Lapel’s efforts to secure finances the previous three cycles had been denied, so the town elected to sit out the last session, revisit its plan and reapply for the upcoming series.
Mike Kleinpeter of Kleinpeter Consulting said the next round opens July 20. A proposal is due Aug. 28, with applications due Oct. 16 and grants announced Dec. 3.
Kleinpeter said if the application was successful, there are six months to bid out the project with construction needing to be started by August 2021.
“We’ve done the same thing three times and got the same results,” Blake said of the project. “We want to look at changing the scope of work.”
Blake said the town likely will vote on an engineer for the project at its June council meeting.
The council president added that the Community Crossing Matching Grant applications are also coming up soon.
He and vice president Tom Marvel have been in discussions on three miles of roads they wanted to recommend be part of the next project.
The roads include parts of County Road 500 South, east side of State Road 13; an area in front of Lapel Stony Creek Township Fire Territory that stretches out to Woodward Park; an area in Brookside Homes housing edition, and a road in front of the new softball park.
Council member Teresa Retherford also recommended looking at 10th Street as a possible road for the plan.
Hamilton County bill
The town chose to table a decision on a bill received from Hamilton County Drainage Board totaling $30,742.50.
Blake said the bill was for the reconstruction of a drain in Hamilton County that connects to a drain in Madison County.
Blake said the drain is property of Madison County and not the town of Lapel.
He asked town attorney Jeff Graham, “Why would we, the town of Lapel, receive a bill for a county drain?”
Graham said he would recommend tabling the bill until he can resume conversations with the contact from the Hamilton County surveyor’s office. He said conversations were happening before the COVID-19 pandemic arose, but communication stopped during the past couple of months.