Rockland Plans Third Workshop on County 'Comprehensive Plan'

Rockland County has set a third public workshop to gather input for the County's Comprehensive Plan project.

The latest session is on Wednesday, June 9 at 7 p.m. at Palisades Center mall in West Nyack, in the fourth floor Raso Room.

The purpose of the Public Workshop is to solicit input from residents and stakeholders on the Comprehensive Plan's content and process, and encourage them to share their ideas, according to county offiicals. Specific draft chapters being covered at the June 9 Workshop  include demographics, aging population, historic and cultural resources, housing and economic development. There will also be an opportunity for residents to share ideas on general issues related to the plan.

The workshop will include a summary and timeline of the plan process, as well as a synopsis of the project to date.

During the workshop, participants will hear a presentation by BFJ Planning, the project consultants, and will then be asked to break into roundtable discussions by topic. There will also be public sharing of items discussed at the roundtable groups.

This is the third public workshop in a series of four workshops for the Comprehensive Plan project. The first workshop, held in December, provided an opportunity for preliminary discussion on the plan's proposed content and issues and topics that should be addressed in the document. The second workshop discussed parks and open space, natural and environmental resources and transportation.

The final workshop will be held in September and will discuss services and information resources and infrastructure, and is set to present a draft future land use plan which will provide recommendations for the county to utilize in its planning processes. In addition, the Rockland County Legislature will host a Public Hearing for the Draft Comprehensive Plan and DGEIS documents in the fall.

The Comprehensive Plan will serve as the basis for all county government planning and development issues for the next 20 years, according to Rockland County Executive C. Scott Vanderhoef and Rockland Legislature Chairwoman Harriet Cornell.

The plan's goals are to provide general recommendations on future land uses within the xounty and possible alternative strategies; recommend general policies that could be undertaken at both the county and municipal levels to implement these strategies; address  matters that are under direct jurisdiction of the county; and identify issues of land use and zoning conflicts between and among municipalities that should be resolved to allow the various municipal zoning regulations to work more effectively.

The comprehensive planning process encompasses an 18-month effort which began in September 2009, and includes public workshops, meetings with town and village planning boards and elected officials, and regular meetings with a Technical Advisory Committee, the county Legislature and the county executive. The plan is intended to be updated periodically to reflect land use changes, data updates or other major planning-related issues.

The Comprehensive Plan project is being carried out by the Rockland County Planning Department in conjunction with the consultant team of BFJ Planning - Buckhurst, Fish and Jacquemart, Inc. of New York City - ,along with Urbanomics of New York City and McLaren Engineering of West Nyack.

The five draft chapters being discussed at the next workshop have been posted to the project website – www.rccompplan.com. Written comments on the plan's draft chapters may be submitted electronically through the project website, via email to rcplan@co.rockland.ny.us, or by mail to the Rockland County Comprehensive Plan Project, Building T, Pomona, NY 10970.