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Planning for New Baltimore
Welcome!
We are in the midst of a very exciting time in New Baltimore! Over the past year, your New Baltimore Town Board working through the Citizens Planning Advisory Group has taken the first steps towards reviewing the Town’s nearly 30-year-old Comprehensive Plan. During this time surveys and public meetings have providd all our fellow residents of New Baltimore - from Medway and Grapeville to the hamlet and River Road, and everyone in between - the chance to offer their opinion on how things are going (good and bad) in our Town.
You have made a difference! We have learned a lot. The opinions you shared during this process have made it clear what is important to you about the Town. What you want to keep the same as well as how and where you want our Town to grow and develop in the 21st Century. The input received from hundreds of residents we now better understand how our friends and neighbors feel so we can be sure that our combined efforts influence and direct that growth and match the consensus of our residents.
The Planning Process - Where we are and what is next! We are reching the end of the Vison phase of New Baltimore's planning effort. Based on your input the Citizens Planning Advisory Group has developed a good understanding of where we as a community are and where we want to go. The the next Action phase of the process will invole deciding how we want to get there.
The Citizens Planning Advisory Group will soon report to the Town Board with recommendations for a Vision, Goals and other findings. A key recommendation of the Citizens Planning Advisory Group will be that the Town enter the Action phase by updating its comprehensive plan based on the Vision and Goals developed from your input. Assuming the Town Board accepts this recommendation, the next Action phase of the planning process will include developing strategies and action steps to achieve the vision and accomplish the goals - all based on the input that you provided!
We still need your help! Om May 10 and 11, 2005 the Citizens Planning Advisory Group conducted another pair of public meetings to review survey findings, Vision and Goals. Thanks to all those citizens who attended those meetings.
After the Citizens Planning Advisory Group makes its recommendations and decides on the next steps there will be a lot of opportunities to be involved in shaping the future of our town. Keep an eye on this web page for more information on how you can get involved.
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Review Input from Public Meetings and offer your comments! The Town Board and the Citizens Planning Advisory Group held a series of two-hour public meetings in late April and early May to receive input from residents. People who participated seemed to agree that these meetings were a great opportunity to share ideas with each other, the committee and town leaders. Information received at the meetings helped the Citizens Planning Advisory Group develop the community survey. For summaries of information provided and input received at these meetings, click here.
Contact us! You can still provide your input and ideas by mail to the Town of New Baltimore, 3809 CR 51, Hannacroix, N.Y. 12087 or by email to [email protected].
The purpose of this web site is to make some information and ideas about planning for New Baltimore, Greene County, New York readily available to people who are working to design our planning effort. This materials on this website do not necessarily reflect the current policy of the Town of New Baltimore or the Planning Board.
Planning process and site overview
Alice in Wonderland has a a line that says a lot about planning: Alice asks, "Would you tell me which way I ought to go from here." The cat replies "That depends a a good deal on where you want to get to." The cat could have added - and where you are starting from.
To develop a plan - almost any plan - you need to know four things:
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Where you are.
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Where are you headed.
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Where you want to go.
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How you will get there.
Answering where you are and where you are headed involves looking at existing conditions and trends. The American Planning Association in The Small Town Planning Handbook suggests including a community profile that summarizes history, general topography and natural resources, evaluation of trends in population, economic base, housing, land use and transportation.
Figuring out where you want to go may be the most challenging part of community planning. It means figuring out what you want the community to be like in the future. Getting people to focus on and talk about what they like about the community and what needs to be changed is the key. You then need to reach some degree of consensus about what you want the community to be like. Consensus does not mean complete agreement. It means that people feel they have been heard, and that they understand and agree to support the decision of the group, even if it is not exactly what they would have chosen. There are a lot of group process techniques available to help.
Once you have good handle on where you want to go then you can begin to figure out how to get there. This means beginning to figure out what you want to do. It includes setting goals or defining a vision to help communicate the direction to others and to guide future decision making. It can include actions or objectives that identify specific things you want to do, and perhaps some immediate action items to gather "low hanging fruit" and help build momentum. The plan should not try to include all the answers or actions. These need to evolve over time.
Click here to view a table showing how these generic questions can lead to a planning process.
Plan to Plan
The Plan to Plan button at left describes in more detail the planning process for New Baltimore and the status of our effort.
Resources
The resources that are available to help with this effort are substantial. They have changed so much in the last few years -even since our last effort to update our plan.
The Resources button takes you to a page with an introduction to some resources found on the web and links to other web sites and documents.