The city of Jamestown has been working to develop their Comprehensive Plan over the last few years, and this past week the official plan was presented to the Planning Commission.

Tom Voight with C&S Companies who worked with the Department of Development on developing the plan presented to the Planning Commission during their meeting on Tuesday.

“Just to give you a precursor, the city received a Smart Growth Planning Grant from New York State’s Office of Community Development,” Voight said. “That was to kind of revamp the comprehensive plan, so this process kicked off in late 2024 and we’re finally here viewing that plan to you in 2026.”

The project scope for the Comprehensive Plan involved community outreach, which Voight said was a big part of the planning process, the incorporation of existing plans, the analysis of existing conditions, visioning and goal setting, future land use planning, recommendations, and implementation strategy. This allows for the use of old plans to not start from scratch, looking at Jamestown right now, and figuring out goals to enact. Future land use planning is the culmination of the comprehensive plan, Voight added, saying that it is the city’s guide when looking at development.

A set of recommendations is also included in the plan, and the implementation strategy helps the city to prioritize their goals and initiatives.

Voight outlined the process that they went through to reach the final comprehensive plan, including meetings, surveys, stakeholder interviews, site tours, and workshops. Youth engagement was also done at Jamestown High School, where “incredible feedback” was received from students.

Voight then went over the eight goals that were created for the comprehensive plan such as embracing community identity, supporting safe, vibrant and pedestrian scale mixed-use neighborhoods, stable housing options and other similar goals. Public input has also been received to prioritize the goals of the public as well, with transportation and stabilizing housing being the top priorities.

The future land use plan was then gone through, along with next steps now that the comprehensive plan is complete. Voight outlined a game that was played at the final comprehensive plan meeting to help the city focus on prioritizing their goals. The game allowed people to figure out what can be done in 10 minutes, then 10 days, weeks and years, to work towards the goals of the comprehensive plan.

“In 10 years we’ll probably be back here reevaluating what we said today and making sure those things still ring true, or if we need to adjust,” Voight said. “Of course in 10 years we want to have achieved all of these goals, and we want to maintain and sustain that success, but we also want to revel in that success a little bit as to what we’ve built.”

The official name of the comprehensive plan is “Pearl City 2045”. Next steps wise, the public review is open now with the SEQR review ongoing, to be done by the City Council. Public feedback is still being accepted, and the plan was reviewed by the city Planning Commission as well.

A bit of the plan was then gone through for the planning commission, highlighting areas such as projected owner occupied housing and vacancies, community engagement, the zoning plan — which is set to be updated next — versus land use plan, project implementation, social clubs and foundations to help promote the plan, and the 10 versus 20 year timelines for the included goals. It was noted that while many of the timelines included in the plan are for the next 10 years, 20 years for accomplishment of everything would be more likely.

“If you could achieve all of this in 10 years I would be dumbfounded,” Voight said. “That would be the most incredible thing I’ve ever witnessed.”

The planning commission officially approved the recommendations for the comprehensive plan to move forward onto the next steps, which include approval by city council. The city’s comprehensive plan can be viewed at www.cscos.com/jamestown-comprehensive-plan/.