02/11/2024 - Version 5 of the Comprehensive Plan is available by clicking here.

Etna Township, situation strategically along the I-70 corridor and minutes from the state capital, has seen unprecedented growth in the last decade. All indicators point to continued growth pressure in and around Etna Township for the foreseeable future. The Etna Township Trustees began the process of creating a comprehensive plan to address future growth with input from citizens in April 2022. The current comprehensive plan was adopted in 2011.

Purpose of a Comprehensive Plan

A comprehensive plan is, as its name indicates, a plan for a community’s future that attempts to consider all local and regional factors. It evaluates the state of the community by taking inventory of current demographics, infrastructure, services, and physical characteristics, as well as by assessing the needs and concerns of its residents. The plan then incorporates this information into a series of explicitly stated goals, objectives, and recommendations to be realized by a particular date or within a specific time frame, such as twenty years or the year 2035.

Many of the recommendations within the plan are visualized through the Future Land Use Map, a document that indicates where particular types of land uses have been recommended within the community. It should be emphasized that the Future Land Use Map is not a zoning map; rather, it is a collection of recommendations. An area on the Future Land Use Map that has been recommended for industrial use, for example, has not been rezoned and will not necessarily host an industrial use in the future. The Future Land Use Map and the comprehensive plan are guides that should be considered and observed by local officials when making decisions concerning the community.