In 2025, Centergy, Inc. worked with the North Central Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission (NCWRPC) to produce this study in response to growing concerns over housing affordability. This study recommends a variety of strategies and programs that each individual community may explore depending on their own needs to encourage the construction and rehabilitation of needed housing, along with recommendations for a possible Regional Housing Fund. The Centergy Region includes Adams, Lincoln, Marathon, Portage, and Wood Counties.
Stevens Point Comprehensive Plan 2026
A comprehensive plan is a local government’s guide to community physical, social, and
economic development. Comprehensive plans are not meant to serve as land use
regulations in themselves; instead, they provide a rational basis for local land use
decisions with a twenty-year horizon for future planning and community decisions.
The project kickoff is scheduled for June 17, 2025, at 6:00 p.m.
Community Room, 933 Michigan Avenue, Stevens Point, WI 54481
Portage County Outdoor Recreation Plan 2025-2029
Portage County’s Parks Department updates its Outdoor Recreation Plan every 5 years to identify essential outdoor recreation needs that affect the future of outdoor recreation in the County.
This Outdoor Recreation Plan (ORP) focuses upon County managed outdoor recreation facilities, and also list projects within the towns and villages. The City of Stevens Point and Village of Plover both have ORPs which will both be referenced in this plan. All listed nature based and active recreation based projects become eligible for competitive federal and state outdoor recreation grant money when this plan is adopted by County or local municipality by resolution.
All communities that want to use this plan to apply for grants, must adopt it by resolution.
Non-profit groups, foundations, and the general public may also use this document to coordinate their own private efforts for developing outdoor recreation facilities.
2024 Portage County Outdoor Recreation Survey Results with Comments (128 page PDF)
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Portage County Comprehensive Plan 2024
A comprehensive plan is a local government’s guide to community physical, social, and
economic development. Comprehensive plans are not meant to serve as land use
regulations in themselves; instead, they provide a rational basis for local land use
decisions with a twenty-year horizon for future planning and community decisions.
EMSI Reports – Economy Overview
We have been creating economy overviews for all ten of our counties along with Centergy and Grow North regions. We have reports from 2018 to 2024 – More information is about EMSI reports HERE. We also have historic reports back to 2013 if you are intrerested.
Portage County Broadband Plan
The broadband strategy presented at narrowing the digital divide in Portage County by enhancing broadband connectivity and accessibility. Additionally, this strategy will pinpoint obstacles and objectives related to expanding infrastructure and promoting broadband adoption. Consequently, Portage County will be in a stronger position to seek and, hopefully, secure BEAD funding for broadband deployment.
Portage County Economic Profile 2024
Every few years, NCWRPC updates basic demographic and economic development information in the form of County Profiles, which provide a snapshot of current economic trends and opportunities for economic growth. Included is a map of business park locations where acreage is available as well as contacts for various economic development agencies and programs.
Portage County Locally Developed, Coordinated Public Transit-Human Service Transportation Plan 2024-2028
Federal transit law requires that any projects selected for funding under the Section 5310 Enhanced Mobility of Seniors and Individuals with Disabilities (formerly titled Elderly and Disabled Capital Assistance Program) must be derived from a “locally developed, coordinated public transit-human services transportation plan”. This requirement was implemented as part of the SAFETEA-LU legislation and the requirement continues under the new transportation legislation, FAST Act (Fixing America’s Surface Transportation). The purpose of the coordinated planning process is to have stakeholder involvement in the assessment of elderly and disabled transportation, and to provide strategies and goals to improve those transportation alternatives. These coordinated plans were last completed in 2019 and are due to be updated for 2023.
EMSI Analyst – Lightcast
Timely, accurate, and effective reports
EMSI / Lightcast delivers economic reports to regional planners who want expert analysis and detailed, hard-to-find data. Our consultants combine EMSI’s comprehensive labor market data and seasoned economic analysis to produce reports that analyze a broad range of workforce, education, and economic development issues. Unlike other consulting groups, we mine our own data and tailor it to create effective reports that communicate to all audiences. EMSI’s custom economic analysis includes the following major types:
- Impact studies (education, workforce, and industry)
- Targeted industry/cluster analyses
- Workforce/labor market analyses (including competency analyses)
- Econmic Gap analyses
- Asset mapping
Another way to think about the work EMSI does is in terms of the questions we frequently address:
- What is the economic impact of a particular institution or event?
- Which high-growth industries are most likely to promote a region’s economic development?
- What comprises the regional workforce (in terms of the industry mix, number of jobs, etc.)?
- What are the region’s major assets (e.g., population demographics, employment, etc.)?
REPORTS FROM AROUND THE REGION
North Central Wisconsin Regional Recovery Dashboard
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the NCWRPC was awarded a grant from the Economic Development Administration (EDA) to assist with the economic recovery of the Region. Part of the scope of work for the grant included the development of a Regional Recovery Plan. The Regional Recovery Plan includes both short-term and long-term strategies intended to guide the Region’s economic stabilization and recovery from current and future economic shocks and to help foster a resilient and sustainable North Central Wisconsin.
As the Region continues to recover from the pandemic and build towards a more prosperous future, local communities and organizations can use the North Central Wisconsin Regional Recovery Dashboard to help track the Region’s progress on issues that were identified in the Regional Recovery Plan as crucial to the prosperity of North Central Wisconsin.
