City of Elizabethtown working on development plans for city’s south end

Elizabethtown City Administrator Ed Poppe told the Elizabethtown City Council Monday that the recent groundbreaking of a hotel on the south end has highlighted city efforts to bring more projects to the area. “The staff has also had discussions about offering other incentive programs to support the south end or to help spur additional development in that area,” Poppe said. “We have a couple programs that the city already operates.” Poppe told the council the city is working on a development plan for the south end similar to the Downtown Master Plan. He said one of the first conversations to be had regarding development is the boundaries of the area in order to expand existing incentive programs such as grease trap installation assistance and facade work. Poppe said whereas development downtown primarily consists of existing structures, development on the south end is primarily undeveloped lots, so the city needs to consider how to award incentives. “Should we tie that to job creation, the number of jobs created and give certain incentives at certain levels?” Poppe said. “There’s also been some discussion that no, we should just offer incentives based on the investment.” Poppe said dialogue needs to begin on what types of businesses the city wants to see on the south end. While a grocery store has been requested by residents, Poppe said the city has not had success with such developers. “They have criteria where they look at the number of households or the number of rooftops within a certain radius of areas,” Poppe said. “It’s typically a one mile, three mile, or five mile radius, and again, most of those comments are there’s just not enough residential units in that sector of our community.” Poppe said the city hopes to present a plan to the council this fall.