Houghton Moves the Capital Improvement Plan and Master Plan Forward to the City Council

Houghton’s planning commission moves two important city plans forward to the council. Houghton’s planning commission thoroughly reviewed the city’s capital improvement plan and master plan ahead of moving both to the city council after over a year of work.

Capital improvement plans act as a sort of guide to Houghton’s project plans for amenities and infrastructure for the next five years. The plan lays out more detailed items, such as ideal project budgets, than the content of the master plan.

So I look at it as kind of an intermediate step between the master plan, which has a lot of our inspirations, and that final step, which would be actual implementation. So it kind of dovetails together in my mind that way. It doesn’t mean, just like in the master plan, it doesn’t mean we’re going to do everything that’s in there. We’re not going to, I doubt that we’re going to do everything that’s in the capital plan. But if it is related, it could be added to the capital plan. But there is, to my way of thinking, an implementation step that needs to take place for any of these and has been mentioned as some opportunity for the public to be involved. – Bill Leder, Vice Chairman, Houghton Planning Commission

Various projects that the city will plan to complete over the capital improvement plan include planting trees along Sheldon Avenue and the waterfront.

I was wondering if it would be better to do $10,000 over three years instead of one at the end. Or the two at 15? – Dan LiBeau, At Large Representative, Houghton Planning Commission

Yeah, I mean. It certainly could be stretched out, and I mean, quite frankly, we have 16 new trees sitting up at DPW right now. Okay. Because we had that budgeted for this year. – Eric Waara, City Manager, City of Houghton

Perfect. – Dan LiBeau, At Large Representative, Houghton Planning Commission

Additional items that were moved around in the capital improvement plan included moving maintenance for the Dee Stadium’s roof, and improvements to the dehumidification system. As well as improvements to the East Houghton docks. Continual ice damage over the years has deteriorated the docks in the area. Following this past winter’s ice in the canal, improvements to the docks were moved up in the city’s schedule.  

A master plan will guide Houghton’s decision-making over the next five years. Some of the content includes set goals for developments, desires, and considerations to keep in mind in the future. 

 Well, I mean, we added where we could. We added catch basins to catch it and keep it off the street. But again, you know, there was, I think, that whole weekend, that from Saturday night and the night on, there was a thousand things that went wrong. And a butterfly flapped its wings here. And we got what we got. Whatever events happened. And not saying things will never happen again. Again, we, you know, we… or part of the back in here on Crete and did a lot of things. And to Mary’s point, nature does what it’s going to do, and you should pay attention to that. – Eric Waara, City Manager, City of Houghton

Both items will move forward to the city council for approval. Projects, developments, city goals, and more that are included in the master plan will help Houghton gain access to certain grant programs. Giving the city a document to reference back to when filing applications and providing impact statements.