The Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority (RDA) has created a new series of public engagement sessions designed to help Northwest Indiana residents better understand and get involved with the extensive growth that is happening around them. Local community members will see plenty of new developments thanks to the recently announced rail projects in the area that total over $2 billion in public investment with the chance to create 6,000 new jobs.
To help catalyze these investments, the RDA manages a number of Transit Development Districts, which are half-mile areas located around existing and proposed railway stations on the West Lake and South Shore lines. These districts collect incremental property and income taxes, and then use those funds to improve infrastructure and create development incentives so that communities in the Region can broadly benefit from the explosion in railway growth.
“We’re excited to get this project out in front of people,” said Dave Wellman, Communication Manager for Northwest Indiana RDA. “It’ll show them some of the ideas we have and some of the opportunities there are for them to really make their community into the kind of place they’ve always wanted it to be.”
Each public engagement session focuses on one of these Transit Development Districts, and they already hosted the first one featuring the future Munster Ridge Road station, which can be viewed here.
It featured comprehensive information about what the new station will look like, broke down how the development process focused on understanding each community’s specific needs, engaged with the public and local leadership, and answered questions submitted by members of the Munster community.
Further information is available on Northwest Indiana RDA’s Transit Development Districts website, www.nwitdd.com. Northwest Indiana residents can leave feedback, participate in polls, submit questions for future engagement sessions, and find detailed information about every current and future station. The date for the next public engagement session is still to be determined, and more information and a date will be announced in early January.