Planning and Zoning has new director
Published 12:42 pm Wednesday, December 21, 2022
- Mikaela Gerry
FIONA MORGAN
The Danville Boyle County Planning and Zoning Commission has a new director, Mikaela Gerry. The hiring comes after previous director Steve Hunter left in July.
Gerry has about seven years of planning experience. She previously worked as regional land use planner for the Bluegrass Area Development District.
Before that, she was transportation planner for Kentuckiana Regional Planning & Development Agency; and before that a planner for the Georgetown-Scott County Planning Commission.
She wanted to come to Danville because she loves the community.
“I really loved the community down here, and the planning commission has been great and really supportive,” Gerry said. “Everything about the situation, I was really excited to get started down here.”
Starting on Oct. 24, Gerry has been busy getting to know the community. She’s been learning about county roads, where everything is, doing administrative functions, and getting to know city staff and people in town.
She said her day to day work consists of phone calls, drop-ins, researching answers for questions, reviewing regulations, plans for subdivision plats, meetings and other things. She said she enjoys interacting and working with the planning commissioners.
“Everyone’s been wonderful,” she said.
Gerry grew up in Maine and went to Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania for her Bachelor’s of Science in Environmental Studies. She got a Master’s in Regional Planning from the State University of New York at Albany.
Working for Bluegrass ADD allowed Gerry to work with different communities’ planning and zoning departments, which she said is good experience for coming up with best practices.
“I got to see how a lot of different places run things and do things and how their regulations are written and things like that,” Gerry said. “I think that’s really beneficial because I learned a lot through that process, and some things that I can think of to try to think of best practices.”
Gerry said her experience in the fast-growing community of Georgetown will also help inform her work in Danville.
