It’s been a year since elected officials approved a plan that would bring pedestrian-friendly promenades, enhanced building facades, a harvest market park and more to downtown Greenfield.
The purpose of the group is twofold: to put some legs to the downtown revitalization plan and to also help city planner Joanie Fitzwater update the community’s entire comprehensive plan.
Fitzwater said it can be difficult to get community feedback on the future of the city. Often, people don’t know who to talk to or what to say.
“What becomes clear when I talk to people in Greenfield is that we want to grow, but we don’t want to lose our independence as being a separate city, and we don’t want to lose sight of our character,” Fitzwater said.
Nobody wants to see Greenfield become a suburb of Indianapolis, she said. That’s why it’s important to build on the traits that make the city unique.
Fitzwater would like to see a loan program established to help restore historic downtown buildings. She’d also like to see the creation of a new Riley Literary Trail, similar to the
Indianapolis Cultural Trail but focused on Greenfield’s literary heritage.
“It just speaks to everyone, so that’s another suggestion that would be a priority project,” she said. “It would accomplish so many things on so many different levels. It would touch on the arts with literary history; it would be educational… It provides a way to get out and get some physical exercise, and it’ll pull people off the
Pennsy Trail and into the downtown.”
The 2015 comprehensive plan, she said, will be an update to the 2006 version.
The city is required to update its plan every 10 years in order to have zoning laws. Fitzwater said she’ll be hearing from folks within the Greenfield Coalition, but there will also be a public hearing next year on the plan update.
“It’s kind of like a sanity check, to make sure we’re still moving in the right direction,” Fitzwater said. “The main thing is to go out and make sure people have an opportunity to express their desires for the future of Greenfield.”
Fitzwater said the group of roughly 20 business, school and library representatives who attended the inaugural meeting of the Greenfield Coalition were enthusiastic. Another meeting is planned for January, and Fewell said city officials will lean on the group of community leaders to help them establish a roadmap for future plans.
“Sometimes ‘grow’ has a negative connotation,” Fewell said. “We want ‘grow’ to mean quality of life…. When we have Greenfield vibrant, we’re going to have a vibrant community, a vibrant county.”
Earlier this year, the Greenfield City Council established a new downtown Tax Increment Finance district to help pay for some of the items in the revitalization plan. If a business builds or expands within the district, property taxes would be captured to go into a special TIF fund to match grants or pay for new development outright.
Shelley Swift, program manager for
Greenfield Main Street, said she was also encouraged with the meeting earlier this month.
“I think people see a lot of good things happening in downtown Greenfield, and they’re encouraged by that,” Swift said. “They’re starting to see a lot of good things happen if we work together.”
And while some people don’t want to see Greenfield change, Fitzwater said most folks are open to new ideas so long as Greenfield maintains its identity.
“We have to embrace the facts that our buildings are deterioriating, that we do have a growing population, and we can’t stand still,” Fitzwater said. “So it’s better to have your arms around the changes and direct those changes rather than just wait and have them happen to you by just having a closed mind and closed door.”