GUILDERLAND — This growing suburban town has started what it anticipates will be a two-year process to update its 21-year-old comprehensive land-use plan.

The Guilderland Town Board, at its Sept. 20 meeting, named nine residents to a committee that will work on updating the plan and also appointed MJ Engineering and Land Surveying as a consultant for the plan.

The committee members are James Abbruzzese, Cody Betton, Richard Brustman, Tara Cristalli, Caitlin Ferrante, Lisa Hart, Elizabeth Lott, Dominic Rigosu, and Stephen Wilson.

No one from the Coalition for Responsible Growth, a grassroots group that has opposed some development, was named to the committee but Robyn Gray, who heads the coalition’s steering committee, told the board she liked the selections. Gray called it “a great cross-section” and said, “Even though we’re not represented, it’s fine.”

Laurel Bohl, a founder of the coalition who was later elected to the town board, asked the board, when she unexpectedly resigned from her post in July, to be on the committee. At the Sept. 20 meeting, Jacob Crawford was appointed to fill Bohl’s seat. Crawford, a Democrat like the rest of the board members, is the only candidate on the November ballot running for the post as the GOP missed the mark when the candidate they chose backed out with no time to find a substitute.

Supervisor Peter Barber said the town board, over the course of three evenings, interviewed over 20 “qualified applicants” who wanted to serve on the committee. He described the chosen nine as “a very diverse group in terms of geography, economic status, age.”

Barber said he hadn’t known half of the applicants and encouraged those who weren’t chosen to participate in the process by serving on subcommittees. “We’re really going to push public participation,” he said.

“I wish we could have appointed more,” said Councilwoman Christine Napierski, “but I think a committee of nine is sufficient.”

Councilwoman Amanda Beedle described the applicants as “a very, very wide swath of people and a lot of different interests.”

Barber said a committee that included Napierski, town planner Kenneth Kovalchik, conservation advisory council member Caitlin Ferrante, and planning board chairman Stephen Feeney interviewed three “well-qualified firms” before choosing  MJ Engineering and Land Surveying.

Barber said he liked MJ’s extensive experience and added, “They had a very meaningful role for their minority women business consultant, and also, too, they have a plan for a very robust public engagement.”

“A comprehensive plan is more than just a document — it is a process of organizing the future of a community while protecting its meaningful and unique attributes,” wrote Michael D. Panichelli, the president of MJ, a 43-year-old firm based in Clifton Park, in a letter with the application.

Nan Stolzenburg, who has worked on plans for Voorheesville, Altamont, New Scotland, and in the Hilltowns, is one of the subconsultants used by MJ.

The 56-page packet submitted by MJ to the town stresses the company’s expertise in community planning and project management and says, “Community engagement will be at the core of this successful project, working to reach and involve residents, businesses, organizations, and all Town departments in the planning process.” The goal, MJ says, “is to create an unforgettable engagement experience, complete with the latest technology.”

All four board members present — Rosemary Centi was absent — voted to hire MJ. Napierski declared it “a good fit for this town.”