A lot of people showed up for the public hearing about a proposed change to the land use ordinance that would allow commercial development on route 9 from the railroad tracks to the intersection with route 220. It was in what I call the Carribean Room at the fire station. There was good discussion about the relationship between the comprehensive plan and the land use ordinance and how piecemeal changes to the ordinance could put it out of sync with the comp plan. A straw vote at the end of the meeting was overwhelmingly in favor of redoing the comp plan before revising the ordinance. Redoing the comp plan will take at least a year and will cost money. But it's money well spent because it makes the town competitive for a variety of funding sources and grants.

Here is the thing about grants. Government levels above us (state, federal) allocate taxpayer money collected at those higher levels to support a variety of initiatives that have high value for the common good, projects that improve downtown tax bases, that create trails so that people will walk more. To determine who gets a chunk of that allocated money, the government looks at applications from towns. One of the first things the granting agency looks at is the quality of the town's government. Has it thoroughly surveyed its citizens about how the town should grow? Has it studied data about the town's economy, population growth, natural resources? This is what a comprehensive plan does and that is why towns that have done a comp plan are much more competitive when the grant money is given out. Do grants come out of taxpayer money? Of course, it's money collected at the state and federal level. We can get some of that money back to improve Unity or we can miss out and let other towns get it.