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Consultants outline final draft of comprehensive plan for the city of Plattsburgh

Consultant John Behan reviews final draft of Plattsburgh's Comprehensive Plan
Pat Bradley
/
WAMC
Consultant John Behan reviews final draft of Plattsburgh's Comprehensive Plan

Consultants for Plattsburgh held a public meeting Tuesday evening to review the final drafts of the city’s Comprehensive Plan and the Local Waterfront Revitalization Program.

The Comprehensive Plan is the long-term vision for the city that includes core concepts such as economic development, sustainability, and identity. It’s intended to guide officials’ decision-making. While most plans are updated every 10 years, Plattsburgh’s hasn’t been revised since 1999.

Behan Planning and Design Principal and Senior Planner John Behan began working on the revision two years ago and provided an overview of the final draft.

“The plan is called ‘Plattsburgh a Thriving City’. The vision for the city is one of vibrancy and recognizing the history of the city, its culture and the mixed use fabric that you have right now. Walkable neighborhoods, abundant affordable housing, a strong base of renewable energy, hydroelectric power, the environmental sustainability responsibility as a core value in the vision. A micropolitan destination city.”

After Behan’s presentation, Saratoga Associates Project Manager Emily Gardner gave an update on the Local Waterfront Revitalization Program, which is being done in conjunction with the Comprehensive Plan.

“The LWRP itself really focuses on access to the waterfront, providing access for the community, to the public. Recreation, habitat, can any of these things tie into the economy? In some cases there are certain types of businesses that might really benefit from the waterfront and others that depend on it, like a marina for example. Whereas a restaurant might benefit from being located on the waterfront. And then are there pieces of culture and history that also tie in. And so the program or the report that results from it outlines a vision for the waterfront similar to the way that the Comprehensive Plan outlines a vision for the city and identifies some key projects.”

Plattsburgh Community Development Director Matthew Miller says it’s important to distinguish between the Comprehensive Plan and the Local Waterfront Revitalization Program.

“The Comprehensive Plan does provide an overall view of every part of the city. The LWRP, the Local Waterfront Revitalization Program, that focuses specifically on the waterfront areas. So while they are two documents which kind of play off of each other and feed off of each other, they are intended to focus on different aspects of the city. The Comprehensive Plan covers everything and the LWRP covers specifically those areas of the city that are waterfront.”

Miller adds these types of plans are intended to be conceptual.

“It’s not intended to get into the level of detail that would enable detailed design drawings or construction drawings to go out for a particular project. It’s intended to serve as that overview so that when planners, when elected officials, are looking at all of the different options they have for development they can tell how they will all fit together five years from now, ten years from now, twenty years from now.”

A final draft of the Comprehensive Plan will be submitted to the Common Council in a few weeks. The Local Waterfront Revitalization Program follows a similar process, with some differences, but the council and the state will also have to approve that plan.

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