Kenosha County will miss its Smart Growth deadline.

Wisconsin counties were charged with creating comprehensive land use plans under the state’s Smart Growth legislation, with a deadline for completion of the plans set for January 2010. Although the county has been at work on the plan for several years, planners are likely to miss the deadline by several months.

John Roth, director of the division of long-range countywide planning, said the plan will likely be complete this spring.

Roth said the county is applying for an extension, and said the county’s contact with the state thought that the extension will likely be granted. The county received a $364,000 grant to help fund its Smart Growth work, and will need to receive the extension and make its new deadline to receive the final 25 percent of those funds.

“We are completing what I refer to as a patchwork quilt,” Roth said, saying the county has been working with each of the towns and villages, along with the city of Kenosha, to create a single plan that will provide a guide for future growth and development in the region.

Creating a plan that each of the communities agreed with has proved complicated.

The county contracted with the Southeast Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission to create the plan.

Ken Yunker, executive director of the commission, said the organization has been writing the plans for a number of communities in southeastern Wisconsin. Some counties have already finished the process. But he said there are a number of counties around the state that will not make the deadline.

“Kenosha County was one of the last to get a state grant, so they got a later start,” Yunker said. “I don’t think it was a slower process.”

Roth said that when the draft of the plan is complete, there will be public hearings in each of the communities on the plan. It will then go to the full County Board for approval.

Once approved, Yunker said, the plan will provide a guide that will show the best areas for residential, commercial and industrial development in the county, along with the best areas for preservation of environmental corridors or agricultural areas.

“Hopefully it will provide guidelines and coordination and cooperation for future land use and land planning,” Yunker said.