KINGSLEY -- "The expenses of everything that we incur as a village keep going up and in order to balance that out, we need some type of growth," said Kingsley Village manager Charlie Jetter.
For nearly a decade, the village of Kingsley has been looking at ways to grow.
Jetter said the community needs to offset expenses as more people call the area home.
"We want to give the community a wide variety of things they can participate in," said Jetter.
Now, thanks to a $12,000 grant, the village will conduct a market analysis that will look for opportunities for future development while keeping Kingsley's small town feel.
"We want to keep this small-town charm" said Jetter. " I like the word economic sustainability, we want that fine line of being able to sustain, being able to thrive, but not get too big."
Kingsley's Downtown Development Authority chair Max Anderson said the feasibility study will help determine how many housing units and what types of commercial space make economic sense.
"The study is truly to help kind of inform us what the area here can support and the $12,250 is specifically allocated toward the residential portion of the feasibility study."
Anderson said the DDA wants the community to have a voice as the village looks to the future.
Those who live here agree.
"If they went ahead doing it without the community's input, I think a lot of people would be worried that they're going to maybe expand on a bigger box store type of thing versus the home town feel," said Kinsley resident Chelsea McCory.
"We want to keep the rural character that we have here in this community. But there are small infrastructure improvements that this project allows the village and the DDA to take on and help make a reality,"
The DDA will discuss the commercial portion of the project in a meeting on January 5th.