The city’s housing committee discussed the updated comprehensive plan during their Monday meeting. Pictured are Crystal Surdyk, city development director; Jason Kulaszewski, city principal planner; Councilman Brent Sheldon, R-Ward 1; Councilman Daniel Gonzalez, R-At Large; and Councilwoman Hannah Jaroszynski, D-Ward 5. P-J photo by Sara Holthouse

The city’s updated comprehensive plan is moving towards the final adoption stage, following discussions and approvals by some of the City Council’s committees on Monday.

At the council’s Housing Committee meeting, Jason Kulaszewski, city principal planner, said the comprehensive plan is something that has been being worked on since he took on the planner role about a year ago. The final stages of draft review and hopefully adoption are in progress, with the current plan out with the public being the third draft. Kulaszewski said additional public comments have been added to that as the public comment period continues until next week.

The plan was also presented to the Planning Commission last week. The comprehensive plan process has included a lot of community engagement, looking at past plans, and goal setting. Part of the plan is also looking at future land use plans, as the update to the zoning code is set to follow once the comprehensive plan is officially approved and adopted.

The contractor the city had help create the comprehensive plan was C&S Companies, and Kulaszewski said that they have shared the amount of public engagement that went into the process, including youth engagement with Jamestown High School.

“The plan ultimately identified eight different goals,” Kulaszewski said. “Essentially, embrace and celebrate Jamestown’s unique community identity, supporting safe and vibrant pedestrian scale mixed-use neighborhoods, stabilizing housing options, improving the multi-modal transportation system, restoring and preserving our natural resources, expanding and diversifying economic opportunities, committing to a resilient infrastructure and then promoting inclusive and collaborative planning.”

Some feedback already received for the comprehensive plan included that people have enjoyed being a part of the planning process, and would like to continue to be able to do that moving forward. Kulaszewski added that during the second public meeting people were allowed to vote for which goals should be prioritized of the eight, with stabilizing housing and improving transportation getting the most votes, and promoting inclusive and collaborative planning getting the least amount.

“One good thing to note is that with the transportation piece we are already working to address some of that with the Safe Streets For All process,” Kulaszewski said. “Honestly, a lot of the goals that have been identified in the plan are things we are already working towards or are at different points making progress in the community.”

Kulaszewski then addressed the future land use plan and some of the goals that come with that, including diversifying housing opportunities and reinvesting in neighborhoods. There is also a focus on the waterfront and downtown, with better site design for large scale commercial uses.

“Our current comp plan is from 1998 with the current zoning plan being from the 1960s or 1970s with updates that have been kind of worked around the edges over the years,” Kulaszewski said. “So this is an opportunity to really bring some of our plans and documents into the 21st century and lead us into the next half of the century.”

The comprehensive plan title is “Pearl City 2045”, and Kulaszewski said it will help to lead the city into the future from where they currently are. City Development Director Crystal Surdyk said the hope is to have a new comprehensive plan before 2045, but that the expected timeline does not always work, considering the last update was 1998. Kulaszewski noted that following state guidelines the comprehensive plan is supposed to be updated every 10 years. Sometimes that can be hard with funding and similar things, so the current plan includes things that can be enacted in the near future and some in 10 years or more. Part of the next steps include the role city officials can play in helping to get the word out about the new plan.

“This is a plan that’s obviously developed for the city but really meant to be implemented by many throughout the community, not just city departments but also nonprofits and partners and things like that,” Kulaszewski said.

Kulaszewski then addressed the next steps before the final adoption of this comprehensive plan, including public comment that is open until the 29th, SEQR and council approval, with the official comp plan approval by the overall city council set for next Monday’s voting session.

“One of the things that when we first started this process over a year ago that we really tried to reinforce with the consultant team was that the intention is for this to be a living, breathing document,” Surdyk said. “It does not belong on a shelf, so it better be good and be something we can take and use as our guide. We’ve had other plans that we’ve been able to kind of do that; I would say the Urban Design Plan, we use that a lot, the Chadakoin River Strategic Business Plan, we use that a lot. … They all talk to each other, they all use each other, and they all kind of say essentially the same thing, that we’re working towards these goals.”

While the goals evolve a bit, Surdyk added that they are all very much aligned. Once the plan is finalized she said she believes they will be very happy with it, and it will be something all community members can use. Kulaszewski noted that the goals have flexibility with them to allow the city to work to achieve them in a way that works for them as they go. It will also help support grant applications for the city.