ROGERS CITY — The Rogers City Downtown Development Authority has approved a new development and tax increment plan.

“This requires us to show a projection of what we’d bring in over 30 years and needs to explain how we intend to spend the money, because of the Michigan Economic Development Corporation Redevelopment Ready Communities program if you want to partner with the MEDC or bring in grant dollars we need to play ball with them,” City Manager Joe Hefele said.

He said the DDA had people with the the MEDC look over the plans to make sure it fits within the standards they have.

“We had them look it over so we don’t have to go through this process twice because once it leaves the DDA you turn it over to the city there needs to be an ordinance done to amend and restate this plan. We need to hang it another place in the district, advertise twice and send it to tax jurisdictions. The last thing because of the cost is do it again the second time,” he said.

It lists things like plans for the downtown and projects the DDA may have. It also listed the short-term priorities the DDA can work on, which are low cost and can be executed in 10 years.

“Some of them are going through the process of showing its a low to moderate community, creating the commercial rehabilitation redevelopment districts, continuing to look into Mainstreet Program, things that are little cost so we can build the (DDA) reserve,” Hefele said.

He said one part of the plan he would like to include is a scoring system for projects. He said because it’s a small town it’s important to have a subjective scoring system for projects to prevent any favoritism.

The board approved the plan unanimously.

Jordan Spence can be reached via email at jspence@thealpenanews.com or by phone at 358-5687.