Comprehensive Plan Committee to gather Amenia residents’ views

AMENIA — Following an initial presentation by planning consultants, the Comprehensive Plan Review Committee decided at its meeting on Tuesday, April 8, that the logical first step will be to invite broad public comment through a community-wide meeting likely to be scheduled in June.

“It’s about the engagement of the public,” said Tiffany Zezula, Deputy Director of the Land Use Law Center at Pace University in White Plains, as she reviewed the process involved in helping the town to develop comprehensive planning objectives and steps toward meeting those objectives.

The town is undertaking a review and update of the comprehensive plan, last updated in 2007. Experts usually recommend such updates every few years, Zezula said.

“We will work to convert public input into planning lingo,” Zezula said, describing the coordination between the Pace University center and Nexus Creative Design of Mt. Kisco, with specialty in community planning.

“Planning is one of the most important goals of local government,” Zezula said, noting that changes in local legislation and particularly local land use regulations need to agree with the comprehensive plan and its goals, objectives and strategies.
“The comprehensive plan gets used; it is your instruction manual,” Zezula said.

Modern planning has evolved, Zezula pointed out, from a silo approach of distinct issues such as housing, transportation, and the environment, to a more interrelated understanding of such topics and how one affects another.

Promoting public engagement will be the role of Nexus, as described by Anastasia Guadron, Principal in the Community Planning arm of Nexus. She reviewed various methods of widening community input, including input meetings, surveys and additional ways of “widening the net.”

A suggested calendar for the information gathering aspect, outlined by Zezula, might see a branding of the project and spreading the word happening from April to July, with public engagement sessions scheduled in June.

Other engagement tools such as surveys and pop-up info booths at town events provide options that could be initiated in June and July. August becomes the target month for town goal refinement.