submitted by Laurie Gilliland
On Monday February 22 at 7 pm, the Stephentown Comprehensive Plan held a Public Hearing so that the town residents of Stephentown could be brought up to date on where how far the Comprehensive Plan committee has come and where we are heading.
[private]Linda VonDerHeide of the Rensselaer County Economic Development & Planning commission was in attendance and reviewed the survey results. The Comprehensive Plan Committee sent out approximately 1517 surveys to the town of Stephentown residents and only about 17% (259) were completed and returned.
Linda further gave an explanation of what a Comprehensive Plan is and its purpose. A Comprehensive Plan is a guide to the future based in the present, cognizant of the past. This document will be available to the public and is a guideline as to where Stephentown would like to progress in the future.
A brief overview of the survey results was given that included what brought residents to Stephentown, what keeps there here, and what the residents thought were the major concerns/issues that Stephentown is facing now and in the future. The Comprehensive Plan created a vision statement that was shared with those that were in attendance and they asked for feedback on how this statement could be improved. The audience did give some feedback which the Comprehensive Plan committee will work to incorporate into this mission statement to make it more concise.
To further review survey results, Linda gave those that attended a brief overview of what town residents felt were the major issues now which included; Emergency Services, Grocery Store, Loss of Open Space/farmland, the appearance of the town, and lack of local employment. It was then shown that most of these issues were what residents were worried about in the future with the addition of Technology and Communication.
As a result of these concerns of the town residents, 4 subcommittees were created so that we may not only receive input from the town residents but so that all these issues could be addressed in a timely manner. Those four subcommittees are: Emergency Services, chaired by Rik McClave; Infrastructure, chaired by Jerry Robinson; Business Development, Cochairmen Tom Quimby and Bill Jennings; Natural Resources, chaired by Larry Eckert. We are looking for residents who would like to work on one of these subcommittees to address these issues. If you are interested, please contact the committee or the chairs to see when meetings will be held.
The Planning Committee will next meet on March 28 at 7 pm.[/private]