Millerton and North East plan for the future: Public reviews first draft of 2019 Comprehensive Plan

MILLERTON — Bearing in mind its commitment to shaping the community’s future through the development of a coherent master plan, the Comprehensive Plan Update Committee presented the public with its first draft of the 2019 Comprehensive Plan during an informational meeting on Saturday, April 27.

Held at the NorthEast-Millerton Library Annex, planning consultant Nan Stolzenburg took the audience on a tour of the process over the last couple of years.

At the presentation’s start, Stolzenburg said the goal was to answer three critical planning questions that revolved around the current conditions of the town and village; the town’s and village’s vision and goals for the future; and the strategies and actions that could be enacted so that the town and village could achieve its vision for the future. 

Public input played a role in the planning process, she said,  from holding monthly meetings to distributing a town wide and village wide survey to organizing a public community workshop. 

Stolzenburg said there was a lot of data collecting behind the scenes. The committee took into account an inventory and description of community and cultural resources; an inventory and description of local economic conditions; an inventory and description of local infrastructure; and an inventory, description and mapping of local natural resources.

“We didn’t try to reinvent the wheel,” Stolzenburg said. “The strengths we uncovered in the planning process are things in your community you want to keep positive and strong.”

The committee developed a vision and goals for the new plan. Stolzenburg said it also conducted an analysis of all public input and data (including maps) and organized the data into strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, among other actions. She then projected the plan’s vision statement onto the screen, adding that the community could now find it online on the town of North East website. She said the vision statement “should really capture the essence of what you want in the village and the town.”

Next, Stolzenburg provided the audience with an extensive list of topics addressed in the plan, which was designed to be “forward thinking” for the next 10 to 15 years. More than 100 different strategies were recommended, from regulatory improvements to capital improvement projects. 

Stolzenburg projected the highlights of both the priority short-term strategies (such as creating a unified community calendar and supporting community based nonprofit organizations) and the priority long term strategies (such as implementing Climate Smart projects and developing a comprehensive parking program in the village to encourage economic development).

Stolzenburg reported that the committee intends to host the first of two formal public hearings on Saturday, May 18, at 2 p.m. in the library annex. Next, the committee plans to conduct final edits on the plan before submitting a final draft to the Town and Village Boards. Both boards will host a public hearing for the plan, followed by an additional review by the county’s Planning Board. After the environmental impact is evaluated under the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA), the plan can officially be adopted via resolution by the boards.

Following the presentation, Committee Chair Edie Greenwood opened the floor to questions, which covered a broad range of subjects, including affordable housing, taxes, zoning, climate change and more. There were also comments on how the community could effectively improve economic development to appeal to both younger generations and the population of individuals shopping online.

In response to a question that compared the new plan with the original plan, Stolzenburg said the main difference between the two is “there was a lot of good ideas in the 1990s plan that haven’t been implemented that need to be fleshed out… that needed to be detail-oriented… The harder part is how to make things real.”

The full plan is now available on the town of North East website at www.townofnortheastny.gov/comprehensive-pan and on the village of Millerton website at www.villageofmillerton.net. 

Printed copies are also available for viewing at North East Town Hall, Millerton Village Hall and the NorthEast-Millerton Library.