CANTON – Several municipal officials and community members turned out for the workshop and walking tour of Canton’s Brownfield Opportunity Area late last month to generate ideas for redevelopment there.

And, an online survey is currently underway to gather even more ideas for enhancing the BOA, which includes the Grasse River corridor area of the village.

Organized by Canton’s Economic Development Department, the workshop on Nov. 20 and tour on Nov. 21 was designed to explore potentials for Canton’s BOA. The public involvement is part of a larger state BOA study underway by the village and town focusing on the village’s Grasse River front areas and historic downtown. The purpose of the study is to identify strategies for returning contaminated, vacant, underutilizes and abandoned properties to productive economic use.

Workshop activities allowed participants to articulate their ideas for development and revitalization strategies in the BOA.

The following morning, the consultant team, steering committee and interested guests took a walking tour of the Gouverneur Street gateway area.

Those attending looked at existing conditions and discussed ways that the half-mile gateway corridor could be improved to encourage business and economic development.

The municipalities have also launched an online survey to garner public input and ideas regarding redevelopment of the BOA. The survey can be found at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/CantonBOA.

Thus far the organizers said about 180 responses have been received through the online survey page.

The survey seeks opinions about traffic and traffic safety in the village as well as activities respondents enjoy on the river corridor and in the village’s parks.

Open-ended questions invite input on what respondents like most and would most like to change about the area inside the BOA boundary.

The New York State BOA Program is designed to help communities complete revitalization plans and implementation strategies for areas affected by the presence of contaminated and potentially contaminated sites and vacant and abandoned sites, and to complete environmental studies of strategic brownfield sites.

The Pre-Nomination Step 1 study for the Brownfield Opportunity Area was completed in 2011.

The Step 2 study carries the assessments in that plan forward and will include economic and market trends analyses, as well as identification and reuse potentials for strategic sites in the BOA that could be catalysts for revitalization.

The survey is one element of a broad public input program for the BOA.

Public workshops, steering committee meetings and interactive site tours as well as participation in community events such as the farmers market and Remington Festival of the Arts are also part of the program. Additional information about upcoming events will be posted on the study Facebook page: Village of Canton Brownfield Opportunity Area.