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HomeMy WebLinkAboutDRAFT minutes 2019-09-11 Project: Town of Dryden Comprehensive Plan EDR Project No: 19183 Date: 9/11/2019 Committee Members Present: John Kiefer, Chairman; Thomas Hatfield; Martin Hatch; Craig Anderson; Joseph Wilson; David Weinstein; Anthony Salemo; Daniel Bussman; Ray Burger, Director of Planning Town of Dryden; and the following members of the EDR Team: Sam Gordon, Senior Project Manager; Walt Kalina, Senior Project Manager; Erica Tauzer, Senior Planner Discussion: Introduction from John Keifer: Purpose to hear from consultants and their interpretations of our Scope of Work. We’ve applied to the Climate Smart Communities grant, which we’ll hear about in the next year. We’re waiting to hear back from the grant program so will save some of the labor intensive tasks for then. Committee John Kiefer, Chairman Thomas Hatfield Martin Hatch Craig Anderson Joseph Wilson David WeinsteinAnthony Salerno Daniel Bussman Opening Presentation (Sam G.): Welcome everyone. We’re very excited about the project that we’re working on. Thanks for having us and allowing us to be here with you. This is a plan for your community and we want to structure a process that works for you. We’ve worked with many communities to not only develop strong visions but also to work through the implementation process. The tasks are scoped in the outline, and include tonight’s kickoff meeting. We will review the project scope, identify information sources, verify schedule and scope, and address roles and responsibilities. The EDR staff here today will be working on this project, in addition to Jane Rice, the Principal in Charge and several others who will be available to work with us. We can craft a robust public engagement process – 10 meetings were planned to occur with the planning committee, in addition to that, we plan to hold 3 visioning workshops, 3 public steering committee meetings, and 3 stakeholder meetings. Brainstorming Stakeholder Groups: Agriculturists need to meet in late fall or early spring to accommodate crop seasons Community associations with a sense of the locale (Ex. Exurban/urban places) Village of Etna, Varna, Ellis Hollow, all dense urban centers Plan should consider village areas even if they have their own plan Dryden resource awareness coalition, which works separate from town-sanctioned board Reps of “smart” rural development Neighboring municipalities that may also be interested in energy issues Business owners and developers with feasibility knowledge Cornell University (especially botanical gardens and real estate office) School districts Community organizations- Dryden Rotary, Kiwanis Conservation Board and Agricultural Board to meet as FG (focus group) Recreation committee 5 FD’s, ambulance, public safety * remember the villages Question: on how to engage with political groups? A: Political groups are not treated as separate stakeholder groups, but it is good to keep them informed and represented. You may think of key people who fall into one of the identified stakeholder groups. Idea for outreach: Work with Steering Committee to spread the word about the plan, perhaps do outreach to targeted groups, this could include a speaker series. We will work with Ray to develop an outreach plan and will present it to the committee for review. Discussion of Survey Component of the Scope: Comments from attendees: In the last plan, the survey was helpful as a way to justify what was recommended. There’s been two: Varna community Development Plan had one survey….the comp plan had another. A third one was for the ag plan….. How to prevent against stuffing the ballot box so to speak? There have been this in the past, there’s a level of distrust in the community Survey monkey has a protection against that How to engage the non-regular attendees? Those that don’t speak up… Part of our skillset is engaging with those individuals; there are ways to go where people are….such as festivals and events….. Paper survey sent out in previous plan had a 35% response rate. Surveys should be designed to be targeted and related to what we want to see. Surveys should validate what was surveyed before….. We don’t want a biased survey…. One way we can get a better response rate is to send out an announcement beforehand, School newsletter for school Ithaca City school families too Surveys can be a marketing piece….that would be nice to incorporate; ACTION ITEM: The Town will provide EDR with sample of previous surveys that have been conducted. EDR will review and develop an approach to utilizing a survey instrument. We will get an understanding of email groups from Ray…..I’m sure there are a lot of stakeholder groups. Varna Community Development Corporation and Nextdoor are also good distribution networks. The Recreation Dept and Town has a Facebook page (854 followers for Rec Dept). ACTION ITEM: EDR will work with the Town to identify email lists/channels for distributing information regarding the comprehensive plan effort. Sharepoint will be used for sharing files. ACTION ITEM: EDR will provide a sharepoint folder to the committee members/town for sharing information regarding the project. Relevant Plans for Inventory and Analysis section: Climate Smart Resiliency for Cooperative Extension Plan Water Resources Plan that we might see this winter, hydrologist studying entire area for water insufficiency Inventory from Tompkins Plan Rte 13 Corridor Study Village of Varna Plan Housing/Zoning changes in light of current zoning ordinance Data sources: TC GIS data for natural resources ITCTC- good source for census data Town of Dryden Land Use Survey (30%) ACTION ITEM: The Town will provide EDR with SHP files for base information associated with previous planning efforts (i.e. Farmland Protection Plan, Natural Resources Conservation Plan, Open Space Inventory) Discussion of Scope Task 4 & 6 related to Mitigation vs. Resiliency Planning: Sam G. provided an overview of the differences between mitigation planning and resiliency planning. There are two tracts: mitigation (beginning step: GHG inventory) and adaptation/resiliency (beginning step: vulnerability assessment). Sam suggested to the committee that there will be more value in completing one of the planning processes that completing two baseline inventories. Tompkins County will be conducting a hazard mitigation plan with a strong resiliency planning component; Sam suggested that the committee consider having EDR focus on the mitigation side and develop a climate action plan as part of its scope. Sam then provided an overview of the steps involved in the development of a Climate Action Plan: First step: of Emissions Inventory for municipal operations and community wide emissions: 50% is typically for vehicles Second step: Forecasted emissions using ICLEI tools— Question: why so long? 2035, 2050…it’s such a long projection A: t’s going to take us a long time to really get ahold of the actions needed to reduce emissions. Third step: Actions required to decrease emissions Question: How to account for the methane accounting? What constitutes CO2 equivalents? A: The CNY RPDB team will be able to walk us through these types of questions. They are technical experts in this area and they have worked with municipalities that have a larger agricultural sector and have had to tackle this before. Q: Are major highways counted in GHG inventories? A: Yes- Rte. 13 for example will be included in the inventory. Sam explained that the EDR scope includes the development of a future land use plan/strategy that will be able to incorporate and synthesize past Town efforts including the Farmland Protection Plan and the Natural Resources Protection Plan. The committee identified other plans that should be taken into account as part of the future land use plan/comprehensive plan including village plans and the Cornell Comprehensive Plan. Q: Have you looked at our zoning because it’s based around smart growth? A: We will be looking at the Town’s existing zoning as part of our scope. Q: Will you be evaluating infrastructure capacity? A: Yes, this will be a part of the inventory phase of the project. Q: Our mitigation plan is important, but we don’t want to it to come at an expense to the comp plan and land use regulations. A: The reason that we focused on the mitigation explanation during this meeting is because we are recommending a change in scope to complete a climate action plan and not conduct two baseline inventories. The comprehensive plan is the main thrust of this project, and the climate action plan will be a secondary component that contributes towards the policies, goals, and strategies of the comprehensive plan. Q: Concern about limiting the plan to just mitigation without any discussion of vulnerability: for example, steep slope areas should be identified as a risky areas, as is Virgil Creek Earthen Dam. We wouldn’t want to not mention it and then end up having to use public funds to support adaptation projects. Response: We will make sure to fold it into the other sections (e.g. public infrastructure) and discuss the vulnerability analysis being conducted in the County HMP’s. ACTION ITEM: Based on the discussion, EDR and its team will conduct a greenhouse gas emissions inventory and climate action plan. The team will not conduct a vulnerability assessment, but will incorporate areas of vulnerability and include information on resiliency in the plan. The committee raised the importance of TC Planning Department and working informally to synthesize efforts. Concern about addressing agricultural needs and mitigation: tilling land, micromanaging Response: We need to see the agricultural protection plan and what’s been developed in the past, in order to see what we should build upon. Our goal is to have a draft document to you by the end of 2020, beginning of 2021. We are prepared to help you through the adoption process. Concern: How are graphics incorporated? Not only from a public point of view, but also from a legislative perspective. Response: Iterative drafts will be sent for review by committee. LA’s green new deal: Explain the relevancy from the beginning. What are the goals, and ultimate benefit for the plans. Big mistake that is often made with GHG inventories is that they are over analytical. Presentation and notes will be posted on the share site. Concern: There are SO many climate related initiatives occurring in Ithaca, TC, Cornell…..can you keep us aware of those efforts as you hear about them? And to keep our plan included in these efforts too. For example, Cornell Comp Plan… Schedule: The Planning Board is planning to meet the second Wednesday of each month to discuss the Comprehensive Plan project. The next meeting with the EDR team will be November 13, 2019 from 6 to 8pm at the Dryden Highway Department Offices. Copies To:Town of Dryden Planning Board These meeting minutes have been prepared by Sam Gordon of EDR. If there are any discrepancies, please notify our office within three business days of receipt.