The Brown County Redevelopment Commission has been working for months to get a grant to develop an economic plan for the county. Then, it planned to get another grant to update the county’s comprehensive plan.

The comprehensive plan lays out guidelines for land use.

The Brown County Area Plan Commission is the group that hears land use change requests.

At the August redevelopment commission meeting, APC members were in the audience to learn how the two groups could work together.

“You own the planning, but it’s critical for us, as redevelopment, to know what the plan is,” RDC member Tim Clark told the APC members. “And we both need to go to the county council and ask where the funding priorities are. We’ve got to be hand in glove.”

Clark said the RDC’s mission, when it started working on these grants, was to learn what was where in the county, like where certain utilities are now and where they could reasonably be extended. Having that data would help to show what land would make sense for certain types of economic development. That, though, is also a planning discussion.

The two APC members in the audience — Paul Navarro and Carol Bowden — decided to have Clark come to the Aug. 22 APC meeting and explain this idea to the entire commission.

Clark said he sees a certain amount of urgency in getting these planning efforts rolling.

The APC will be hearing two rezoning requests this week for two large economic development projects.

“Some recent activities have sort of made the realization that because we don’t have this plan in place, what are we checking it against?” Clark asked. “How do we know this is what people want? How do we know this isn’t a mistake? We don’t know.”

The county does have a comprehensive plan for land use, created in 2011. But Clark, who has a background in military planning, said it is not nearly as detailed as it needs to be.

“In hindsight, it’s good, I think, that these big things are happening, because it prompts us to have a plan,” he said.