County commissioners to decide on planning updates

The Hill County commissioners met Thursday afternoon to review updates to the growth policy for the county.

Paul Tuss, executive of Bear Paw Development, confirmed that, per law, every county is required to have an up-to-date growth policy.

Clay Vincent, retired county sanitarian, said the growth policy outlines what a county must provide for the community and its people. This includes amenities such as parks, playgrounds, housing and businesses.

The last time the county commissioners met to establish a growth policy was in 2010.

“Our thought is to go through this and update what needs to be updated,” Vincent said. “A lot of this stuff doesn’t need to be updated, but there is some stuff that needs to be updated.”

Vincent added the updates won’t be cost free, but it should not be excessive to the point of seeking a grant to bring in funds.

Updates aren’t limited to just city infrastructure, but also revising the town’s population, Vincent said.

The commissioners discussed meeting with the Planning Board to get their thoughts and input and then presenting it to Great West Engineering for a cost estimate and timeline.

Great West Engineering is a civil engineering firm based in Helena and specializes in mapping and project planning for cities.

Their webpage gives an example of a growth policy project they did for Meagher County in 2015.

The public does have a say in what the growth policy for their community should look like, Vincent said.

“There are some straight things that are in the law that I think you have to go through, but where you get most of your information is having some planning board meetings, having the minutes that are there saying ‘here are the areas that I think need to be pursued,’” Vincent said. “Then having an open meeting for the public to come in and express their views on what they feel the next five or 10 years should be.”

Katie Larson, planning board member, said she believed a lot of people would attend a growth policy hearing because of the turnout for the regional resilience summit that was held at the Havre-Hill County Library in August.

The county commissioners said they would contact the planning board to see if they could schedule a meeting in the last week of November or first few days of December to go over more concrete ideas for the growth policy.

Vincent said the county commissioners needed to speak with Great West, meet with Dave Sheppard, Disaster and Emergency Services coordinator for Hill County, meet with city and meet with “anybody else that might have some ideas of things that should be looked at.”

Vincent added that he would like to see more community members show up to the public hearings regarding the growth policy so they can get their feedback as well.