Comprehensive Town Plan documents available for review

On Nov. 20, we again met at the Swayzee Community Church to hear from the Ball State University research team on their work developing our town’s 10-year comprehensive plan. The comprehensive plan is a document which lays out the community’s vision for Swayzee’s development over the coming decade. It describes what we want Swayzee to look like in 10 years and proposes steps for us to reach that future. It isn’t a policy or law, but rather a guide for helping us make policy decisions which are in line with our community’s aims.

Using information gathered from the town survey and our previous town meetings, the Ball State team has completed a full draft of the town plan! During our meeting, they presented an overview of the plan and sought feedback on the draft. The plan includes many exciting ideas for revitalizing our community, including building a public square in the downtown area and opening a co-op grocery store which would provide fresh produce and other products from local farmers. Please take the time to review their presentation, and let us know what you think! You can access the slides from the presentation here:

One difficulty facing Swayzee is that we have many big ideas for community development, but not a lot of money for implementing those ideas. One of the proposals in the plan is the development of a Tax Increment Financing (TIF) district in downtown Swayzee, a public financing method which allocates future increases in property tax revenues within a defined area towards a fund dedicated to community development projects. It’s important to know that this is not a new tax! Rather, it is a way for the town to decide that a certain portion of tax revenues will be dedicated to community development for a number of years.

Using available property tax data, the Ball State team proposed a TIF district located in downtown Swayzee which would generate almost $2 million in tax revenue over the next 20 years. The spreadsheet they used to calculate this potential revenue, along with the properties which are included in the district, are available here: