Residents can take a look over the next several weeks at the proposed blueprints for future growth in Kenosha County as the county moves to complete its Smart Growth plan.

County planners have been working for years alongside the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission on a Smart Growth plan designed to guide development in the region through 2035.

The county was required to make a plan under state Smart Growth legislation and secured a $364,000 grant to help fund the project.

“We’re trying to have a standardized land use plan for the county,” said John Roth, director of the division of long-range countywide planning.

Roth said that while the recession has slowed development in the county to a crawl, development will inevitably return.

“We were probably one of the last ones to go into that (real estate development) slump in the area, and we will probably be one of the first ones to come out of it,” he said. “This will be a road map for that growth. ... It will be a starting point and hopefully a guide to managing that growth.”

The plan includes outlines from each of the communities in the county, and guides for what type of development is acceptable in different areas of the county, including along the Interstate 94 corridor.

Planners had hoped to have the project completed by the end of 2009, but the process took longer than expected and the county applied for and received an extension. They are now required to have the plan in place by June to receive the final $91,000 payment due from their planning grant.

Roth said there will be a series of public hearings in communities in February and March. The plan will ultimately go to the County Board for approval.

County planners incorporated existing plans created by communities such as Pleasant Prairie and Salem into the Smart Growth plan.

In Salem, Bradley Zautcke, director of planning, land use and the utility district, said the plan will be the town’s land use plan adopted by the Town Board last year.

“We started our neighborhood planning back in 2004-05, and the plan was adopted last year, including a plan for all 11 neighborhoods,” Zautcke said.

Although the county will hold another hearing on that plan this month, the plan is identical to the one already adopted by the town and already presented to residents in a series of public hearings before the Town Board’s vote in 2009.

Roth said the county’s goal is to have the full plan before the County Board in April.