Sixty-six people attended the third in a series of four public input sessions last week on how Northport and Omena might look in the future.

The public reviewed drawings and conceptual plans that are part of the Small Town Design Initiative program at the Wednesday, Jan. 9, input session at the Northport Community Arts Center. Drawings and plans were created by 23 students enrolled at Michigan State University’s School of Landscape Architecture and Design.

Students spent two days at Northport and Omena in September meeting with community groups and taking photos of different parts of both villages to help them develop ideas for the villages.

The initiative program is run through MSU’s Landscape Architecture Design program. The Leelanau Township Community Foundation is leading the Northport-Omena effort to help guide growth in those communities.

In November, the students presented their drawings to the public and since then the drawings and plans have been on display in the Leelanau Township Library. To view the plans online, visit www.ltcfmi.org.

Merry Hawley, executive director of the foundation, said the group went through each drawing and plan, and the public responded with comments.

“We had five different design boards we reviewed. The students had no limits placed on them about costs, so some of the ideas presented were really pie-in-the-sky,” Hawley said.

One of the more popular ideas brought up was creating a pedestrian walking and biking path from the west end of Nagonaba Street to the Braman Hill Recreational Area. Hawley said since the village owns all of that property, the building of a pathway has potential.

All input from the Jan. 9 meeting, plus written comments submitted to the foundation about the drawings, is in the hands of the paid staff at the Small Town Design program in East Lansing. Hawley said staffers will put together a final plan that will be unveiled at meeting on May 20. Paul Rothaug, a member of the foundation’s future design committee, said the final plan won’t be the end of the process for the community.

“We’re going to take the ideas and drawings from the plan and see what we can implement. We’ll take one topic, like the walkway to Braman Hill, and hold a public meeting to see how it could be built,” Rothaug said