Present: Nan Stolzenburg, Steve Caine, Deborah Herrin, Andrea Herrin, Midge Dube, Doug Flynn, Len Wessel, Lynda Battenhausen, Rick Smith, Holly Ahern, Dean Durst, Maria McCulloch, Dawn Szurek, Guy Mitchell, Dot Mitchell, Peg Gaines, Gary Vanderhorst, Christy Schrader, Al Larue, Marv Schorr, Sally Ellms, Jenna Smith, Jim Leupold.

The first meeting of the Comprehensive Planning Committee, (CPSC), was held at the Charlton Town Hall. Steve Caine began the meeting with a brief overview of the purpose of the Committee. He emphasized the importance of working as a team and to continuing to get to know each other. He solicited member’s suggestions for continually improving committee processes. It is important to implement a plan that reflects what the people in the Town of Charlton want for Charlton’s future. Procedures for administration and coordination of public outreach were established. Steve then introduced Nan Stolzenburg, the consultant approved by the Town Board and the Selection Committee of the CPSC.

Nan’s firm is Community Planning & Environmental Associates located south of Schoharie. She gave a brief background on what her company does. Nan will provide technical help and ideas, but feels her job is to get the information from the Committee as to what our community wants for the future. To make this plan successful it will be necessary to have a collaborative relationship with Nan. She will not be handing the CPSC a plan; nor will the CPSC have to write a plan from scratch. Nan will give the Committee direction on processes and the Committee will decide what will work best for the town. There are several phases of doing a Comprehensive Plan. The first phase is finding out what Charlton is all about and where the town wants to go. When that is decided, then the next phase is to look at where the town wants to be in 10 or 15 years. The Committee needs to know what the townspeople think Charlton’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats are. Ideas can be formulated to keep the strengths in the future. Plans and policies can be put into place to fix the towns weaknesses. The opportunities that can be taken advantage of can be evaluated to see if they can efficiently and affectively be implemented. Threats are long term issues that could prevent the town from going where it wants to go as a community. Plans and ideas can be implemented on how to counter threats. Once it is figured out what the town’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats are, then a vision of where the town wants to go and how to get there can be developed. The last phase will be to decide what kind of strategies and recommendations can be put into place to implement the vision.

Nan told the Committee that their job will not be done when the Comprehensive Plan is written and the Town Board adopts the Plan. That’s when the real work begins. The Committee will have to continue to work with the Town Board and the decision-makers of the town to implement recommendations, otherwise it will just be papers on a shelf.

A question was asked how the Comprehensive Plan is implemented and what its relationship is to the Zoning Ordinance. Nan stated that in New York State, towns are authorized to develop comprehensive plans through NYS Town Law 272-A. In that law it states that any land use law that a municipality has must be in accordance with a Comprehensive Plan. The Comprehensive Plan is a basis and justification for zoning, site plan review and any other land use laws the town has. The Comprehensive Plan is a road map and a set of policies for the town, not a law. Beyond the land use section, the other reason for a Comprehensive Plan is that any other government agency must review our Comprehensive Plan when they do any capital improvement (e.g., widening Route 67) in town. They would have to work with the town and with the Plan and have to abide by it. A Comprehensive Plan will also help in grant writing and funding. If the town can show in the Plan that the town has analyzed issues and formulated policies to deal with them, the town would have more of a chance of success in getting grants.

There were more questions and explanations from Nan on the adoption of the Comprehensive Plan, the Town Board’s role, Zoning changes melding with the CPSC, how to deal with public water, how specific the Committee wants the Plan to be, and how and when the Comprehensive Plan will be reviewed and updated in future years. Nan noted, comprehensive plans are generally reviewed every five years in order to keep them current and relevant. Marv Schorr stated he was going to recommend that the Town Board not take action on the current review of our Zoning laws until the Comprehensive Planning effort was complete.

Nan asked what the best way would be for her to communicate with the Committee. After a brief discussion it was decided that Nan should email to everyone on the Committee, and anyone who wishes to email Nan should “cc” the whole Committee, and when she replies, Nan should “cc” the Committee so everyone is up to speed with all dialogue. Those who don’t have email will be sent Minutes and pertinent information through the U.S. mail. Nan will forward any information she may have for the Committee a few days prior to the meetings so that everyone will have a chance to read things over and come prepared with thoughts, which will make the meetings more efficient.

Nan asked the Committee if they would like her to come prepared with a model or laundry list of work that is already fashioned to give to the Committee for them to use, or if they would like to start from ground zero and work up from there. An example is the town-wide survey the Committee will be mailing. Nan can give model questions for the survey that the Committee can edit to mold them to fit Charlton, or the group can begin from scratch and discuss and write the questions. There were differing opinions on the subject and after several minutes of discussion, it was agreed that Nan would come with a starter list of survey questions that the Committee can edit according to town needs and concerns.

There was discussion about how the Committee plans on advertising monthly meetings and workshops. The Burnt Hills Spotlight will cover the meetings. The Gazette is the official paper of the town and Chris will contact Steve Williams, who has previously published notices of meetings for the town. The town newsletter will be another venue for advertising, as well as the town website. As far as the Minutes for the CPSC meetings, they will be “DRAFT” Minutes and emailed and/or mailed to each Committee member, who in turn will be asked to give any corrections back to Chris within five days. The Minutes will then be corrected and the “DRAFT” Minutes will be posted on the website as soon as possible to keep residents of the town up to date. The Minutes will then officially be approved at the next months meeting.

Nan went over the Draft Scope of Work which outlines the things that need to be accomplished and in the order it should be followed. Nan suggested to Jenna Smith and Andrea Herrin to think of ways to get students ideas and/or their involvement in the Plan and what direction they want to see the town headed. If Jenna and Andrea get names and phone numbers of other students interested, Nan can contact them and interview them to get their input. Nan confirmed that the number of meetings she listed in the Scope of Work were a minimum number.

The option of doing a Community Image Survey was explained. This would involve inviting everyone in the community and it would take about one half hour to 45 minutes. A series of slides would be shown of landscapes, buildings, roads, etc., and people would rate them. It’s a visual preference survey. It would tell the Committee what is important to the people in the town aesthetically, and what specifically constitutes such things as the rural character of the town. This is something the Committee can talk about and decide if they would be interested in building that into the Comprehensive Plan. The Committee should decide at the February meeting if it wants to do an image survey because it would have to be scheduled.

Another idea is a Photo-Simulation, which is taking a photograph of a place, for example a landscape, and photo-simulating into that landscape a house, optional type subdivisions, or a road to show what they could look like, in order to find out what people like best.

A final option is Environmental Review. This must be done before the Plan is adopted. A full Environmental Assessment form must be filled out. This would help to analyze whether there would be any negative environmental impact as a result of the adoption of the Plan. There is a Generic Environmental Impact Statement that does the same thing but in a more detailed manner. It goes into greater detail and offers the town the opportunity to set specific criteria and thresholds. This Generic Environmental Impact Statement can be used by town agencies and developers to pre-review environmental impacts. A lengthy discussion followed on Generic Environmental Impact Statement, SEQR, zoning and the Comprehensive Plan. Nan agreed to send the group some samples of GEISs. She also recommended the group look at the example of the GEIS on her website www.planningbetterplaces.com.

Nan recommended that the survey and the community workshop be the first two steps on the agenda. As much information as possible needs to be gathered from the people in the community in any way feasible; a survey, workshops, interviews, meetings, etc. After several questions on surveys and workshops, it was decided that the February newsletter will be one tool used to announce that a survey will be coming out, as well as the date for a workshop. A workshop date was set for March 6, 2004, at 9:00 A.M., with a snow date of March 27, 2004. The site for the workshop will have to be determined, but schools and churches were suggested. Steve Caine agreed to coordinate a location. Andrea Herrin volunteered to design a poster to advertise the workshop. Nan will do a press release for the newspaper announcing the workshop, and posters will be put out around town.

The last item covered was a description of a profile of information Nan will need to help assess Charlton’s attitudes, policies, demographics and resources. Deborah Herrin agreed to coordinate the collection of this data. Nan needs it by March 1, 2004.

Next meeting will be held on February 2, 2004, 7:00 P.M. at the Town Hall.

The meeting ended at approximately 9:30 P.M.