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Multiple projects are ongoing for the city's Department of Development, and city planner Jason Kulaszewski recently presented a few updates on items such as the Comprehensive Plan and the upcoming National Night Out event to the city's Planning Commission.
For the Comprehensive Plan, Kulaszewski said things are moving forward following City Council approval last month, and the public comments and feedback are still being incorporated into the final plan. The final Comprehensive Plan will include all of the comments and feedback, and should be ready for review by the end of the month, he added.
"So that's going to move into the zoning update," Kulaszewski said. "We're still working with C&S on that. They've started to reach out to folks from the ZBA as well as our code enforcement officer and our codes team will be meeting with them and we shared a short list of folks to reach out to for initial engagement about the zoning. So that will be moving forward here and I will continue to give updates as that moves forward as well."
As for National Night Out, Jamestown's event is set for August 4 at Bergman Park from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. Kulaszewski noted that the event is on a Tuesday, but added the city does not pick the day as the event is nationwide.
"The whole idea is to engage with residents," Kulaszewski said. "Police and fire will be there as well as local nonprofit organizations and other organizations. There will be games, food, and family-friendly events, so I just wanted to get that on folks' radar."
A few other announcements from Kulaszewski to the Planning Commission included that the city in partnership with the Chautauqua County Landbank will be hosting a Hands On 2.0 Community Cleanup on August 1. Sign up is available online through the Chautauqua County Landbank, in the same way as people signed up for the last Hands On event in the late spring and early summer. Kulaszewski said sign up should be exactly the same, and that this event will be at McCray Park.
Kulaszewski gave a brief update on the city's Safe Streets For All as it moves to the next phase. The top 10 areas to prioritize with the project have been identified and the city is now looking for feedback from the community to make sure they have identified the correct top 10 locations, how to prioritize those locations, and if the locations are not right, what other locations there are.
All material remains on the Safe Streets For All website, but Kulaszewski added the website is being updated.
"I've added additional materials from the last steering committee meetings, uploaded presentations from those committee meetings, as well as the information that was shared," Kulaszewski said. "Part of the web update is adding a link to the survey, so the materials for the survey are also online while we're going through the update process."
Planning Commission members asked about any new and exciting upcoming projects, and He noted that the consultant team that is working with New York State is the group in charge of coordination and communication, so everyone is following their lead, especially as the process has changed slightly since the city was awarded DRI funding the first time around.
"Jamestown was one of the first cities to get DRI funding in 2016," Kulaszewski said. "Over the past 10 years, the state has kind of adjusted their process a little bit to streamline it and make it easier to keep projects on track. So, we're taking their lead on the process piece right now."
In terms of specific projects for the DOD, Kulaszewski said there are not too many coming down the pipeline right now. Older projects such as Gateway Lofts also have no updates at the moment, he said. Other projects such as Water Street Brewing Company are still actively in the works and moving towards their finish line, though it was noted that they have faced some delays but are still hoping to finish up in August, the last that the DOD has heard.