The Henry County Board of Supervisors met on Thursday morning for their regular weekly meeting. The board was meant to discuss the planning and zoning recommendation today, but motioned to move it until next Thursday, September 26th. It may well be moved to the following week, as one supervisor will not be in town for the meeting next week. As a result, the Planning and Zoning meeting for September 25th has been postponed with no meeting date given yet. This is due to the supervisors wishing to discuss the planning and zoning recommendation before the September 25th meeting.
The board also met with Chris Ales, who is part of a team that purchased former Iowa Wesleyan dormitories to repurpose them into housing options. That group applied for tax credits, which were granted, and they now are moving forward with the goal of starting construction at Hershey Hall next spring or summer. Jim Bergman, the developer of this project, stated that he has developed over 100 projects, and is thrilled to develop one in Mt. Pleasant. He did concede that there is a lot of work to do. It should be noted that the conversation today was centered strictly on Hershey Hall.
After the meeting, a group of legislators, city council members, chamber of commerce members, and more, met at the Hershey Hall to discuss the future plans for the project. Speaking with Jim Bergman, he explained what the goal is for Hershey Hall in the coming months. “So the project is a Section 42 affordable housing project that’s going to be converted into moderate income workforce housing. I think there’s about 32 total units. If we get the number of units that are shown right now in the architectural plans, we hope that it’s going to be about a 12 month construction cycle and we hope to break ground with that construction next spring, but it’s it’s designed to provide rents that are less than market rate rents for a period of 30 years.” 
Bergman then went into depth about what the renovation will look like.”Besides that, obviously it’s a renovation of an existing building, so it’s it’s keeping this building alive and refreshing it to go maybe another fifty, 100 years. It’s a gut rehab. So the entire interior will be torn down basically to the studs and outside walls and completely redone.”
Supervisor Lindeen called it a “happy day” and believes this will be good for our community. The motion to approve a contract with Southeast Iowa Regional Planning Commission was approved 3-0.
One citizen spoke up during the public comment section of the meeting. He believes that the Board of Supervisors should schedule two meetings a week when there is an important item that needs to be discussed, such as the planning and zoning recommendation. Scheduling a supervisors meeting for next Tuesday, for example, would still allow the board time to discuss before the postponed planning and zoning meeting. He mentioned that the Board of Supervisors had planned in their budget to meet twice a week, so the money should be there. The Henry County Board of Supervisors will meet next Thursday, September 26th, at 9:00am.