City officials in Oneonta heard an update from a consulting firm last evening on a new comprehensive plan for the city. Elan Planning, Design and Landscape Architecture of Saratoga Springs was hired for $90,000 to help the city plan its future. A steering committee appointed by the mayor will hear from the public as part of the process. Gary Herzig, the mayor of Oneonta, says the city needs to update its plans for the future.
“Oneonta’s last comprehensive plan was written in 2007. Much has happened; we have many new challenges, many new opportunities, and we want to make sure as we move forward that the we’re going in a direction that the people of Oneonta want the city to go in, so for that reason we think it’s a good time to update its comprehensive plan.”
What will be included in this plan, what specific areas do you wish to include?
“We’re focusing on four areas. One is housing, housing is a significant problem in the city of Oneonta. We’re very fortunate to have two fine colleges here; however it means that families have to compete with students, so we don’t have affordable housing really for any income level.
“Secondly, we’re looking to grow our downtown area. We’re looking to expand our downtown to the area that is now known as Market Street. We have some abandoned buildings there, some vacant lots, and we see that as a potential site that could become a hub for the growing number of small agricultural entrepreneurs in this region, including organic farmers, craft beer brewers, hops growers, so we want to get the city’s input on the development of that region and expanding our downtown.
“We’re also looking to develop a piece of property in the middle of the city known as the former Delaware and Hudson Rail Yards into a place where we might to attract quality jobs, possibly technology oriented jobs, like manufacturing. And we’re looking to make sure the growing commercial activity in our River Street area is in line with what the residents of that region want it to be.”
How can the residents and the business owners get their opinions heard?
“There will be many opportunities. There will be forums where folks can attend, there will be public hearings, there will be public surveys. So, there will be multiple avenues for which people can express their thoughts and opinions.”
Once these opinions have been heard, what happens next?
“Well, we’re working with the Elan Group, who are facilitating this planning process, they will be working with a steering committee, made up of 10 people that I am appointing. There are people who represent all different sectors of the city of Oneonta: we have business owners, land owners, health care people, human service people, representatives from our two colleges, Hartwick and SUNY Oneonta. The committee will work with the consultant in going through all the data, analyzing it, and putting it in a report that we can look at and use to drive our direction going forward.”
Once the plan is in place, will there be concerns about funding to get these projects underway. Will there be a coordination or public and private funding? Some sort of coordination, some sort of partnership?
“Well funding is key, and one of the reasons for creating a clear plan is that it’s hard to get people to invest when you haven’t demonstrated that you’ve put a lot of thought into the direction you’re going, you’ve determined whether it’s something feasible, you’ve determined whether it’s goals that are consistent of what the people of the city want. So this will be a tool to help us go after funding. And yes it will be a combination of state funding, federal funding, other public sources, as well as private investment.”
Do you have a deadline, a time limit on this? Are you hoping to get the public input by such a date and then get the plan in place by such a date and move forward, etc?
“We expect the creation of the plan to be approximately a 12-month process.”
