There was a lengthy agenda before the Plattsburgh Common Council’s Finance and Community Development Committee Thursday evening. It included a number of appointments, presentations and updates on projects.
The members of the Finance and Community Development Committee are all the common councilors. It’s chaired by Mayor Chris Rosenquest. They heard an update on Downtown Revitalization Initiative, or DRI, from Director of Community Development Matt Miller.
“Of course the council’s aware of the status of the Durkee Street project, currently in litigation," Miller said. "For the streetscape and riverfront access projects, construction for the Arts Park is still ongoing. We expect completion of that project by the end of July. The remaining streetscape and riverfront access projects: the riverfront walk and the improvements to Durkee Street those are tied up with the schedule for the Durkee development project because all of those construction timelines are going to have to align. So it’s slowly, slowly winding down the DRI.”
Barton and Loguidice is a Syracuse-based planning, environmental science and landscape architecture consulting firm retained by the city. After Senior Project Community Planner Bob Murphy provided an update on Harborside development plans, Mayor Rosenquest asked councilors if they were familiar with an earlier Local Waterfront Revitalization Program, or LWRP, report that was issued about five years ago.
"It's quite comprehensive and when you look at Harborside it outlines the pros and cons, the benefits of development and it also outlines all of our waterfront up the river," Rosenquest said.
“We’ll be referencing it extensively in the city beach applications as well," Murphy said. "And trying not to duplicate efforts too. You know having that kind of holistic view that’s in that report would be important.”
“As much as the LWRP is driving the conversation for a Harborside master plan it really is a foundational document for development in the city of Plattsburgh," the mayor said.
Zoning Board Chair Ron Nolland lashed out at the council after the committee refused to approve an appointment to the zoning board.
"It's more than the lack of allowing an appointment by a mayor, which has never been denied by a council, and an appointment recommended by a full independent board," Nolland said. "It’s the danger I see that you’re going to keep doing this to take away our power so that you guys can control what you want by having only people on independent boards that will agree with you. It’s very disheartening.”
Councilor Gibbs responded that there is a process that was followed.
“Things are presented to the committee that oversees that," Gibbs said. "Zoning in this case is Public Safety. And when that poll came to us in our Public Safety Committee it was unanimously denied. Now this shows up in this committee without a prior discussion, it just reappears. If this were merely a perfunctory practice of rubberstamping then why are we a bicameral system? And I don’t appreciate being bullied in the public.”
One of the councilors noted that budget season is rapidly approaching and Mayor Rosenquest noted discussions will soon start on formulating his proposal.
“We will start that process probably within the next couple weeks," Rosenquest said. "Chairs of the committees that those departments report to will be invited into those discussions with the department heads regarding developing those budgets. Subsequent to developing the budgets we’ll have a series of public hearings to then outline and discuss how those numbers came about. And then any updates or changes or recommendations recommended changes that come out of those public hearings will be made back to the budget and then we’ll submit it before the official October deadline.”
