Delmont secures $15,000 grant to develop borough recreation plan

Delmont officials have secured a state grant to begin developing a comprehensive plan, a living document that lays out a town’s plans for its future.

Over the next three years, council will match the $14,900 grant from the state’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources in order to begin developing a recreation plan, one element of an eventual comprehensive plan, which is typically updated every decade and lays out a town’s goals for the next 10 years.

“It’s a multi-year process,” Councilman Stan Cheyne said. “It involves a lot of public input, and there’s also an open spaces plan, so areas like Shields Farm, Newhouse Park, those types of places, will be involved.”

Cheyne said the plan is to unite community members to generate ideas for what they’d like to see in those spaces, long term.

“Then from those suggestions, we can create projects and are able to apply for additional grants through DCNR,” he said. “One of the things they look at is: how does the grant you’re seeking fit into your comprehensive plan, or the county’s comprehensive plan?”

Next door in Murrysville, the municipality’s home-rule charter requires that they develop a comprehensive plan. It was last updated in 2015.

“It’s a good resource document,” Murrysville Chief Administrator Jim Morrison said. “If they’re using it to apply for grants, it’s a good one-point source of information about the community. It also identifies a community’s goals and potential projects required to meet those goals.”

Before updating the comprehensive plan, Murrysville officials underwent a two-year process of revisions and public input.

For Delmont, the next move will be to create a request-for-proposals in order to find a consultant to help with the recreation plan, the first step toward a full comprehensive plan.

“We had thought it was a better idea to work on these in different stages,” Cheyne said. “Due to the amount of use of, and benefit to, the community from the recreation spaces, it was decided to work on this portion first.”