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Recommendations of Plan to Plan Group
Introduction
BACKGROUND
The Plan To Plan group was established through a request from the Town Board to the Planning Board, delivered by Arlene McKeon and John Wallner, in July 2003. Jim Coe, Joseph Loux, Marjorie Loux and Alta Turner represented the Planning Board. Robert Knighton who had been attending Planning Board meetings and had evidenced interest in community planning joined the group at the onset. Arlene and John represented the Town Board. Ken Rebusmen began attending sessions mid-season, provided cogent input and became the next informal member of the working group.
Between July and December, the Plan To Plan Working Group met 6 times to formulate a strategy for initiating the process of revisiting the 30-year old New Baltimore Comprehensive Plan. Attendees and participants in some or all of the meetings have included: the initial 8 members, Supervisor Louis, Ed Diamante of GCDPED, Robert Hallock, Peter Melewski [phone interview], Clesson Bush [Town Historian and interested citizen], Lee Davis [Planning Board Chair], Richard Guthrie [Town Board elect] and Barry Guptil [Planning Board].
Activities completed over that period have included [but not been limited to]: video-viewing; brain storming sessions; submittal of a proposal to the Small Cities Program Technical Assistance Grant [intended to underwrite a portion of the costs anticipated for the visioning process]; review and discussion of comprehensive plans and community surveys from a range of other communities; initial scoping of survey format and mailing/distribution options; warm discussions and sharing of cookies and watermelon.
Over this period, the participants have come to the understanding that the critical first step of any revisit of the Comprehensive Plan is a community participation process focused on coming to consensus as to how New Baltimore ‘sees’ New Baltimore, how we want to build on what we have and are, what we would like to see improved and where we would like to be in 5, 10, 20 years. Working out the details of how we get there can follow logically once the vision is formulated. So, the plan to plan process evolved in ways no one really anticipated. We came full circle, to a starting point which is ‘well-back’ from where we thought we were. It has been a learning experience that will, hopefully, spark community engagement in a dynamic process and result in a revitalization of spirit in beautiful New Baltimore.
The final formal action of the Working Group was submittal of the following recommendations to the Town Board as a proposed road-map for New Baltimore’s visioning process. The body includes a statement of objective, a recap of the recommendations, followed by more detailed rationale and thinking behind the sound-bite version.
OBJECTIVE
This document outlines Working Group recommendations to the Town Board as to ‘next steps’ in community planning for the Town of New Baltimore. The near-term objective is to complete a Community Visioning Process which constitutes the public participation portion of an update to the current New Baltimore Town Comprehensive Plan. The Visioning process would end in a formal statement of community planning objectives, would be completed by the end of 2004 and would provide the basis for more concrete steps as to how to achieve that Vision.
Near-term recommendations are bulleted below, followed with more detailed discussion of rationale/documentation and suggested timelines. The remaining portions required for the update to the current 1973 Comprehensive Plan are anticipated to be conducted throughout 2004 and completed in 2005. While those activities clearly follow from the visioning process, their discussion is tangential to the primary focus of the near-term recommendations provided here.
RECOMMENDATIONS
. . . Moving forward from the Technical Approach outlined in the Small Cities Grant Proposal application:
1A. Should the HUD Small Cities Grant application be accepted, conduct proposed technicalscope with modifications.
or
1B. Should the HUD Small Cities Grant application be rejected, conduct proposed technical scope on reduced scale.
. . . As soon as practicable:
2. Identify members of a Citizen Advisory Planning Group
3. Finalize, distribute and publicize schedule of Town of New Baltimore planning events
. . . To assure quality and follow-through of the Visioning Process currently scoped:
4. Engage a professional planner as reviewer and participant in the New Baltimore planning process
5. Identify and pursue alternative funding options to support the Visioning process
. . . In anticipation the Public Meetings, as proposed in the Small Cities Grant application:
6. Proceed with data development, including:
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1990 – 2000 Census Summary
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1993 – 2003 Residential/Subdivision/Commercial Development
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Historic - 2003 Aerial photographs of New Baltimore
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1993 – 2003 Town Budget Summaries
7. Develop draft community survey prototype
8. Review/feedback on draft community visioning session outlines
. . . In looking to the natural ‘next steps’ deriving from the Visioning Process:
9. Target 2005 budget items to cover both finalization of the update to Comprehensive Plan and funding to support census recommendations derived from the Visioning Process
10. Initiate formal/informal engagement with planning groups in neighboring towns
To view more detail and rationale for each of these recommendations click here.