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New Putnam Valley Comprehensive Plan in Jeopardy
To the Editor:
On Wednesday night, January 2, 2008, without prior notice, Putnam Valley Supervisor Tendy placed on the Town Board Agenda a resolution to dissolve the Comprehensive Plan Committee.
The resolution was not on the published agenda for the meeting, and it was not discussed with Town Board members Wendy Whetsel and Priscilla Keresey before the meeting. (Based upon their statements at the meeting, Town Board members Robert Cinque and Eugene Yetter had apparently been briefed in advance about this resolution.) In addition, Mr. Tendy did not disclose at the meeting that he had made an addition to the agenda.
Ms. Whetsel and Ms. Keresey tabled the vote on the resolution until the next Town Board meeting (January 16).
The timing of Supervisor Tendy's resolution dissolving the Committee is curious because in addition to completing the Comprehensive Plan in less than two years, the volunteer members of the Comprehensive Plan Committee devoted several months and countless long hours to the new draft Zoning Code and Subdivision Regulations which partially implement the Plan. The first Public Hearing on the draft Code and Regulations is scheduled on February 13, 2008.
Our Town's newly adopted Comprehensive Plan was unanimously passed by the Town Board on December 12, 2007. When the Town's 1990 Master Plan was adopted, the Master Plan Committee continued to work for many years to implement the Plan. The 1995-96 Zoning Code was the major result of those efforts.
Section 5 of the 2007 Comprehensive Plan (the Implementation section) begins as follows:
"Adoption of the Comprehensive Plan by the Town Board should be viewed as an important but initial step in a much longer process. Implementation of the key recommendations in the plan will continue over the next several months and years. It is important to establish a strategy for implementation to ensure that the community's effort to develop this plan will lead to specific actions that move the community toward the vision and goals outlined herein."
It will take a great deal of hard work to implement the new Comprehensive Plan. The Town Board and the Planning Board are simply too busy with their own work to devote the necessary time to this effort. As an example, the Planning Board has had the draft Zoning Code and Subdivision Regulations since August and has yet to comment on it. The Town needs the dedication and focus of the Comprehensive Plan Committee to get the job done.
The Comprehensive Plan Committee should not only stay in existence, it should continue to meet regularly.
Disbanding the Comprehensive Plan Committee sends a message that the Town Board plans to abandon and never implement the unanimously adopted 2007 Comprehensive Plan.
Not a good start for the new administration.
Karin Greenfield-Sanders
Chair, Comprehensive Plan
Committee
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