A Message from
Town Supervisor Philip H. Herrington
Dear Residents,
Some ten years ago, your Town Board adopted Brunswick’s first Comprehensive Plan. I was proud to be part of that process. Although the Town had prepared a draft Comprehensive Plan back in the 1970s, it was never officially adopted. When I became Supervisor in 1998, adopting a Comprehensive Plan became one of my priorities. It is a costly, fairly involved process, and it took several years, until February 2001, before Brunswick’s first Comprehensive Plan was finally adopted.
As I said, I’m very proud of the Comprehensive Plan we prepared and adopted in 2001. It was and is a fine document, and is still very relevant today. That said, since its adoption there has been significant, planned development in the Town, especially along the Route 7 corridor. Times have changed, largely for the worse, financially at least, and as a result we anticipate that the attitudes and priorities of many people have changed. There have been some changes in population and demographics in the Town. For these reasons, and many others, and because the law strongly encourages it, we have decided to move forward and update our Comprehensive Plan. We have dubbed the project Envision Brunswick – Planning the Town of Brunswick’s Future Today.
Before I go any further, I thought I’d explain, for those of you who have not been involved in or followed this type of process before, just what a Comprehensive Plan is - and what it is not. A Comprehensive Plan is, simply put, an expression of goals, principles and strategies to achieve a community’s vision for future growth and development. It is, in the truest sense, an outline for smart growth (we’ve certainly heard those words before), and provides guidance for future decision-making by Town boards and officials. It is a resource, effectively a “road map,” for government, businesses and citizens, to assist in planning, by summarizing the community’s assets, analyzing existing conditions, and implementing a strategy to guide a community in going forward. The overall purpose of the Comprehensive Plan is to help guide the Town’s future vision and develop the necessary tools to shape desired future land use. A Comprehensive Plan is not a law, and is not, by itself, a legally enforceable document. Nor is it an exact or detailed manual that specifies what will happen within certain area of the Town. The Comprehensive Plan must be implemented by way of zoning laws, budgetary allocations and investments of public funds. For example, once the Comprehensive Plan is updated, we intend to move on to updating our Zoning Ordinance, which dates back to the 1950s and 1960s. This will help ensure that the vision, goals and policies enumerated in the updated Comprehensive Plan will be fully implemented.
We have recently engaged the services of the Laberge Group, a respected engineering and municipal planning firm, to guide us through this critical process. With their help, we are applying for grants to help defray our costs in these hard times. We are also going to harness our Town’s most important asset, the intelligence and commitment of its citizens, to help us put together, refine and adopt our updated Comprehensive Plan, through working committees, meetings, surveys and other public participation techniques. With the knowledge and input of our residents, town officials, volunteers and members of the Town’s various boards, we will identify land use development techniques and develop planning options that will guide us into the foreseeable future. We will analyze the Town’s demographic and population trends, transportation and infrastructure needs, agricultural and natural resources, economic conditions and land use trends. I urge everyone to get involved in this important process. We need your input, your help and your support.
©
2012
Town of Brunswick
336 Town Office Road, Troy, New York 12180
Telephone: 518/279-3461 FAX : 518/279-4352
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