by Alex Brooks
The Town of Berlin Comprehensive Plan Committee held its kickoff public meeting on March 9, at which it introduced itself and the consultants from C.T. Male Associates who will be working on the project and gave a general overview of the process that will lead to a formal comprehensive plan being written and adopted by the Town.
The meeting was attended by about 25 citizens, in addition to the Committee members and the consultants.
Tara Fisher, the Chairperson of the Comprehensive Plan Committee, began by introducing herself and other members of the committee who were present. The Committee meets monthly, and has been doing so for over a year. Members of the committee include John Cornwall, Ralph DeLeon, Rich Fennelly, Maryellen Gilroy, Kent Goodermote, Carl Greene, Sheila Hewitt, Eric Katz, Jim Saunders, Sylvia Thompson, Tom Thornbury and Susan Womersly.
Fisher said people can still join the committee. If anyone is interested in doing so, they should contact her.
Fisher described how the consultant was hired. Seven companies were invited to submit proposals to assist the Town in writing the Comprehensive Plan. Five of them submitted proposals, and three of those were interviewed. C.T. Male Associates was chosen by the Town Board at the November meeting, and they began work in December. She then turned over the meeting to Chuck Voss, Senior Planner for C.T. Male, for a Powerpoint presentation.
Voss, assisted by Planner David Plante, started by describing what a Comprehensive Plan is. It is a document which sets forth the goals and objectives of a municipality in relation to such things as land use, economic development, agriculture, recreation, transportation, natural resources, housing and infrastructure.
He said the Plan is not a law and it is not zoning. However, if the Town later decides to pass land use laws, they must be pursuant to the goals of the Comprehensive Plan.
Voss emphasized that the Comprehensive Plan should reflect what the community desires for itself, so the more public input there is the more valuable the plan is, as a true representation of the community’s vision for itself.
He said he will begin with an assessment of the built environment, the demographics, the economic statistics and various other data that can be gathered by his office, but the heart of the process of creating a plan is to meet with individuals and focus groups – business groups, civic groups, religious groups – and find out what people want for the future of this community.
Through this process the Plan will develop an analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats perceived by the residents, which will lead to an overall vision statement and long range goals. For each goal, the Plan will offer specific strategies and “action steps” toward achieving it.
The finished Plan will be presented to the Town Board and to the public and, ultimately, adopted by a resolution of the Town Board.
As a first step toward gathering community input, the Comprehensive Plan Committee put together a community survey last spring with eighteen questions and distributed 1,180 copies to every household in town. 320 of these surveys were returned (28%). The results were presented in pie charts shown on the screen.
After the presentation there was some discussion and questions. One of the members of the committee asked Voss to explain to the audience how his company will be paid. He said it is primarily through grants. So far the town has put up $5,000. A “Greenway” grant of $5,000, and a planning grant of $15,000 through the County have been secured. No figure was offered for what the total cost of the consultant will be, but Committee Chairperson Tara Fisher said one of the things the Town liked about C.T. Male’s proposal was that it was priced in stages, so the Town can delay the next stage of the process if funds for it have not yet been secured. Voss said C. T. Male will be helping the Town to get grant funding to finish the project, and he said there will be numerous opportunities to seek more grant funding. He also noted that having a Comprehensive Plan in place will be a great help when seeking grant funding for Berlin in the future as it gives the Town extra points when grant applications are being evaluated.
Fisher said she hopes the Comprehensive Plan can be finished in a year or so but that it depends on funding.