RUMFORD — It’s been 12 years since the town updated its vision for growth and development.

On Thursday, the first step for a new comprehensive plan began with the selection of Haley-Ward consultants to guide the process.

The Select Board was unanimous in support of the action to hire the Bangor firm, which submitted the only proposal. However, Town Manager George O’Keefe noted the town is familiar with Haley-Ward, which played a crucial role for the engineering in the completion of the downtown infrastructure project.

A comprehensive plan acts as a blueprint, providing a legal basis for things like zoning and land use regulations, guiding infrastructure investments, and enabling efficient resource allocation and informed decision-making for residents, businesses and local government.

The fee for the work is $110,000. The town has raised all but $5,000, approving $35,000 in each of the past three years for the comprehensive plan account. O’Keefe said the remainder is not a concern.

Vanessa Farr, regional manager of planning and design land development for Haley-Ward in Bangor, has set a timeline of eight months to complete the task. “I feel eight to 10 months is reasonable,” Farr said.

Select Board member Frank DiConzo said he’s served on two comprehensive planning committees, which took 11 and 13 months to complete. “It’s a slow process.”

Rumford is also a member of the Androscoggin Valley Council of Governments. O’Keefe said the town could have asked AVOCG to be the consultant in the process for a “substantially cheaper” fee, but they have commitments with other member communities and it would be two to three years before they could even consider working with Rumford.

DiConzo and Board Chairperson Chris Brennick noted that with the growth the town is now experiencing they did not want to wait to have the work done.

Further, Rumford Planning Board Chairperson Travis Palmer told his board in September, “When I’m looking at the comprehensive plan (last updated in 2013), I see a lot of confliction. I see a lot of things that contradict each other in the comprehensive plan. We’ve stated, as a board, for years now that this comprehensive plan needs to be revitalized in a way that reflects our community interests.”

Resident Will Boyce said he believed that because Haley-Ward are engineers for the 3i housing project in Rumford Center, working on the comprehensive plan for Rumford would be a conflict of interest.

O’Keefe disagreed, saying it might have been a conflict of interest if the housing project involved public assets. But 3i is a private project.