There were no speakers at the public forum at the Jan. 12 Flint Planning Commission meeting, so we proceeded with the site plan review for Hurley Medical Center's planned expansion of the emergency department and relocation of the lobby to the Fifth Avenue side of the hospital.

This would mean that instead of going to the Mackin Road side for the main entrance, visitors and people going to the ER would go to a new entrance on the south side, and ambulances would use what is now the main entrance area.

Because there is quite a change in elevation from the north part of the hospital grounds to the south, part of Sixth Avenue would have to be raised near Stone Street. Stone Street between  Fifth and Sixth would be vacated,  although vacating the street will be handled as a separate decision next meeting.

Parking for visitors would no longer be in the ramp, but in a surface lot. Part of the reason for the shift would be to make the entrance to Hurley easier to find by re-orienting its front to the main street and making it easier to navigate from the lobby to the emergency area and elevators once you are inside. The proposed site plan only addressed these changes, although Hurley's long-range plan may include other things as well.

An interesting note that came up in discussion was that the city plans to eventually "complete" Grand Traverse (make it safe and usable for people on all modes of transportation and of all physical abilities) by making it a three-lane street with one lane in each direction and a turning lane.

Another item that was discussed was the site plan's impact on Dort Park (not the one by Dort School), a green space in front of Hurley that was given by the Dort family for use by Hurley visitors and staff for relaxation and solitude. By switching the side the lobby is on, Hurley will alter the park a little,  but more people will probably see it and use it because it will be by the entrance.

Because Dort was given privately and had certain use restrictions on it, commissioners decided that approval of the site plan would be contingent on getting a letter from the designated representative of the Dort family saying they did not object to the proposed change to the park. With that caveat,  the site plan was approved.

Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy Report

Commissioner Robert Jewell, who attended the three community focus groups, shared some of his perspectives. There were common themes among them, but different perspectives. He said that there was a draft CEDS document that had been circulated,  and it was currently being revised by the consultant. Some of the issues to be considered were land use in the county, issues of diversity and access,  the value of having a variety of economic development options (including attention to small businesses) and having a single entity identified for economic development in the county.

The CEDS steering committee will meet at 2 p.m. Jan. 20 at the Mott Foundation Building. The public is invited. There is a public forum at the start and end of the meeting.

The committee is gearing up to present the CEDS document to city council and the county commission in February. There will be an official public comment period before those bodies are asked to vote on it.

The steering committee hopes to continue meeting after the CEDS document is adopted to help in transition to an implementation phase.

Master Planning Initiative

Jewell shared several items relating to master planning that he wanted  to put on our radar screens: Clarifying the respective roles of the Planning Commission, city planning officer, and administration in a planning process; the status of the chief planning officer position (which I guess has not yet been filled); perspectives from the administration on what they see as needing to be done and how planning is being framed (perhaps partially prompted by media coverage such as the mayor's trip to Pittsburgh); and recent coverage of a report done by University of Michigan-Ann Arbor graduate students on what they think should be done with vacant properties in Flint.

Commissioner Freeman Greer shared that he would also like us to be aware of current planning activities happening, such as conversations about Chevy in the Hole.

I appreciated the sentiment,  both that the Planning Commission should be aware  of such planning efforts, and that mutual communication between the commission and groups undertaking specific planning and visioning sessions would be important to ensure we are all in the loop.

Jewell also referred to a question asked last time about the status of the funding requests, that were  made roughly eight months ago, about the lead up to master planning and about a suggestion I had made that we as a group take time to talk about our hopes and expectations for community involvement in a master planning process.

We agreed that there were many items we wished to discuss under master planning. Yet,  if we don't identify which ones we will tackle,  it will be hard to chip away at them. So we decided to dedicate the master planning portion of the next meeting to developing our list of master planning items to discuss.

Some items were offered already, but we wanted to set aside time to give others a chance to think about it and to involve the members who were not present. From there, we will try to take on a couple of the items each meeting.

City Funding for Housing

This was not an item we discussed in the meeting,  but rather something I've been thinking about lately. What good is a soapbox if you don't stand on it once in a while?

One of potential values of having a master plan is that it might lay out things like where new housing might be needed. My hope is that such a plan would be rooted in the desires of the people living in that neighborhood.

We don't have a master plan, but I do know that some neighborhoods have done plans for their areas. In some of these cases, Flint Park Lake, for example the neighborhood plan explicitly calls for investments in housing. I understand that there has been some controversy about the decision to restrict federal HOME dollars to new and refurbished housing in specific areas (Smith Village and the area by Hurley).

In isolation, that might not raise eyebrows, but it would be interesting to see which neighborhoods have been chosen for HOME dollars over the last five years or so, and whether the investment was spread around the city. To my admittedly incomplete knowledge,  Flint Park Lake has not seen public investment in its housing priorities.

I found out today that Flint can expect about $25 million in stimulus money that can be used for demolishing vacant homes, building new ones and renovating existing ones.

That's exciting news. I realize that empty houses that aren't taken care of are a big concern to residents, and I agree that ones that are broken beyond repair need to come down.

At the same time, I hope that the significant influx of resources will be seized as a chance to not only tear down dangerous vacant homes, but to invest in existing homes or even build new ones where the neighborhood has already made that a priority- including areas like parts of the north side and east side that haven't seen that kind of investment lately.

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Elizabeth Jordan is a lifelong Flint resident who represents the 9th Ward on the Flint Planning Commission.  In addition to working in the nonprofit sector, she is involved with various community initiatives promoting social justice and peace.