“If you don’t know where you’re going any road will take you there.” Yogi Berra
The 111 South Liberty project spotlights the need for an update of Stony Point’s almost 30 year old master zoning plan. Building a four story apartment building with 86 apartments and 200 plus parking spaces near Walgreens is overbuilding at the wrong location.
If, as some folks say, we need affordable rentals then lets plan for them.
As part of the planning process we might ask: How many rentals do we need? Over what period of time? Where should they be located? At what cost in terms of additional police, fire, ambulance, school resources and town infrastructure (roads, sewers, etc.), as well as traffic congestion?
Without an updated plan that we, as Stony Pointers, create we end up having to deal with plans and projects created by developers who are out to make a profit and have little interest in our community.
Our Town Board has resisted planning for years. They’ve been asked over and over to update the master plan and refused. Why? Why would the people who were elected to serve us work so hard to maintain an out of date zoning plan?
It makes no sense.
Wouldn’t a plan that sets goals for our town and tries to anticipate future issues, trends and obstacles be a better approach than a “react after the fact” approach?
Perhaps when the zoning plan is forty or fifty years old some future board will decide to dust it off and revise it.
But one thing’s for sure.
It won’t be the same Stony Point when they do.
Pete