It will be at least another six weeks before a public meeting is held to address the Burleigh County comprehensive land use draft plan being written by SRF Consulting Inc.

"It's been a tough plan to write," said SRF's Cindy Gray to a room full of grim-faced Burleigh township officers gathered for their annual meeting on Wednesday.

"A lot of people have polarized feelings about the plan," Gray said. "It's difficult to write a plan when people have strong concerns about sprawl and want you to address these and then balance that with people that don't want control."

SRF wasn't able to begin work on the plan until late spring 2007. By that time, the county commission had already declared a moratorium on development until Dec. 31, 2007. Since that time, the county has extended the moratorium until the end of March, but it appears the plan still won't be available.

Gray has been working to bring together the information collected over the winter and put it into a form addressing Burleigh's development. As she completes sections they are sent to Burleigh County planner Carl Hokenstad for review.

"The planning staff has spent a lot of time reviewing the sections and then it's my job to address their additions and clarifications. That's going to be done for the next couple of weeks," Gray said.

"When the plan is complete it will suggest different growth management strategies, suggest county policies that should be adopted, and provide an implementation plan," Gray said.

Asked if the plan is meant to affect all townships or just the 11 unorganized townships, Gray said it would affect all the townships. It has to, since the county planning commission and county board of commissioners make the final decisions on several development issues.

Ecklund township's John Spitzer asked about the plan providing a checklist. If all the criteria of the checklist were met, it would allow the county commission to rubber stamp a proposed subdivision rather than come to a subjective decision, which have caused past controversies.

"I'm trying to address that. It's one of the things I've been asked to do," Gray said. "We've had some information on what it costs to provide services and other things for subdivisions. That's been a difficult thing to get our hands around. How we take that information and translate that into checklist criteria is the next step. I haven't laid out specific criteria yet, but I'm working in that direction."

But while the plan will have some specific guidance, Gray said she doesn't want to boil it down to road and infrastructure requirements. It will include growth strategies; areas where it makes the most sense to direct growth since the services and infrastructure are already there.

Gray said she hopes to have a draft completed by the end of this month, at which time it will be given to the policy and technical advisory committees for review. The committees will hold a joint meeting to provide their input on the plan. Gray said she will take that input and attempt to incorporate it in the draft.

When that is complete, the draft plan will be given to the public for review for at least a two-week period. Then a public meeting will be held.

Gray said she expects the meeting will either be late April or early May. After that, there will be at least two more chances for public input as the Burleigh County planning commission and Burleigh County Commission will both hold hearings before adoption of a plan.

(Reach reporter Gordon Weixel at 250-8255 or gordon.weixel.)@bismarcktribune.com