"The hope is today that you come out of here with a better idea of what the recommendations of this plan are," said Ryan Smalley with the urban planning group Envision at a public forum Wednesday.

Smalley has spent the last four months narrowing down those recommendations to these:

1. Adjust future land uses along North River and Niles Road corridors from commercial retail and office uses to denser multi-family residential uses similar to surrounding development.
2. Collaborate with neighboring communities to develop workforce housing the Bolindale Neighborhood
3. Where necessary, due to chronic speeding on side streets, consider physical traffic calming tools including speed tables or cushions to slow traffic and encourage non-motorized activity.
4. Consider creating zoning overlay districts along major commercial corridors that encourage consistent development standards.
Elm Road Joint Overlay District
5. Consider creating zoning overlay districts along major commercial corridors that encourage consistent development standards.
Town Center Overlay District
6. Support programming that increases access to healthy and affordable fresh food.
7. Consider allowing urban farming within the Township and specifically in the Bolindale Neighborhood as this area has limited access to healthy food.
8. Consider creating an open space/conservation zoning designation to further protect environmentally sensitive land along the Mosquito Creek.
9. Consider increasing the Township's tree canopy to help mitigate the impacts of the urban heat island, flooding, and other climate impacts.
10. Develop a corridor plan for East Market Street from Rosegarden Drive to Howland-Wilson Road.
11. Focus on improving priority trail, bike lane, and sidewalk improvements including the Mosquito Creek Greenway.
12. Please write in any additional comments you may have regarding the Township's Comprehensive Plan Update.

They all came from ideas folks living in Howland Township had at the first public forum on the township's comprehensive plan back in January.

Now, "we're getting close", Smalley said.

The plan has been whittled down to those 12 priorities for the township over the next 10 years.
It won't be much longer until those priorities come into focus.

"The hope is to have a draft plan document in front of the trustees in July," said Smalley.

Lots of Howland residents wanted passive and active recreation opportunities.

"I think there's a lot of recommendations around Mosquito Creek and opening up access to that as much as we can," Smalley said.

The plan also lays out a need for a detailed traffic study along busy East Market Street.

"How should that corridor look? How should it address additional traffic and how could it be more pedestrian-friendly in the future?" said Smalley.

Trustee Matthew Vansuch believes developing the township's center will be a rising tide to lift all boats.

"Making sure that we have affordable housing for residents in our areas, that we have places where people want to live with the quality of live, property maintenance and what we can do to be the place where people want to move and to live," Vansuch said.

Howland residents can still submit their ideas and suggestions for the comprehensive plan by CLICKING HERE.