It’s been 20 years since the City of Warren updated its comprehensive plan.

Now that Vince DeJoy is on board as the city’s planner, that process can now begin in earnest.

And it’ll look different than it has before.

The City’s Planning Commission discussed the effort Wednesday morning.

City Manager Nancy Freencok said the state received a grant of up to $90,000 to complete the planning process as well as an updated zoning ordinance.

That plan also included a joint recreation plan with the county.

“When we received the draft recreation plan, city staff was not at all pleased,” she said, noting that it just recited maintenance issues and didn’t bring new ideas to the table.

It spurred the question of whether that firm is the right firm to undertake the comprehensive plan.

“(I) think it’s very important we are comfortable,” she said, with the firm they are working with.

She explained that the prior comprehensive plan emphasized what the city hoped to do whereas the hope in the new plan is aimed at being “implementable” with specific projects, responsibilities and funding sources identified.

Commission member Mike Suppa asked if the city is comfortable with the three firms it contacted for the recreation plan or whether staff feel a need “to go beyond that.”

“It sounds to me like we’ve got players we do think would be effective for us,” Commission chair Don Nelson said.

The commission ultimately decided to preview comprehensive plans prepared for other locales from each of the three entities with interviews to follow if necessary.