EWELL — Residents and property owners on Smith Island are invited to a public meeting 4:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 17 at the Ewell recreation center to discuss Smith Island’s future.

The Consensus Building Institute (CBI), together with state and county leaders along with island representatives will take the first steps to create a long-term vision for Smith Island’s future.

This initiative, known as the Smith Island Community Visioning Process, will establish what CBI calls a “broadly understood and supportable roadmap for what needs to happen to create a vibrant and sustainable economy, built environment, culture, and natural environment.”

Specific outcomes will include:

• Describing a shared vision for the future of the Island.
• Enhancing the community’s ability to visualize and understand the nature of the challenges it faces in a variety of ways – demographic, economic, social, and environmental.
• Engaging the Smith Island community in an ongoing and in-depth dialogue to define a shared and integrated set of consensus-supported short-term and long-term goals and actions to sustain and strengthen Smith Island’s future.
• Preparing a Smith Island Vision Plan that articulates goals for economic development, the environment, housing, community facilities, transportation, infrastructure and utilities, finance and administration, and other issues to be incorporated into the update of the Somerset County Comprehensive Plan.

A technical assistance grant totaling close to $90,000 is being split between the Department of Housing and Community Development and the Department of Natural Resources. For more details visit http://smithislandunited.com/ or http://www.cbuilding.org/project/smithisland.