BY ADAM ATKINSON
North Country This Week

POTSDAM — The village is planning to compile a comprehensive plan and the process may begin as soon as next month.

The board discussed the issue at their meeting Monday, Sept. 19.

“I was wondering if it was worthwhile to discuss a starting date of maybe Jan. 1 and a completion date of maybe July 1 of next year… or is that something we need to think about for awhile,” asked Village Trustee Monique Tirion.

The last village comprehensive plan in 2012 took 10 months to a year to complete, village officials said. The plan which covered village development at the municipal level was set to expire after 2022.

Village Trustee Alexandra Jacobs Wilke asked Village Planner Fred Hanss if the village would need to follow the same process to compile the plan. “Or maybe we alter the process?” Wilke asked.

“The process that we followed last time around was that we put together a large working group. I recollect about 15 people,” Hanss said. “It included a couple of trustees, representatives of the town of Potsdam, zoning board, planning board and then rank and file residents, folks from the county planning office, chamber of commerce, university, hospital. This was a big group.”

Hanss said a group wouldn’t have to be set up the same away again but said that representatives from the planning boards should be involved.

“So 1/1 to 1/1?” suggested Village Mayor Ron Tischler. “Give ourselves that year, just in case.”

“I certainly don’t want to rush anything and have the public feel like they are not able to weigh in,” Wilke said. “I want to make sure we have a robust feedback.”

“Is there any reason not to establish the committee now and have the first meeting? I mean if we know the people who need to be on, is there anything to prevent us from enacting, beginning that process with the idea that we get all of our ducks in a row and then the first meeting in January is really a productive meeting rather than we begin the process in January,” said Village Trustee Abby Lee.

Hanss suggested the board assemble the comprehensive plan committee in October. He said during the last village comprehensive plan process, a call went out for village residents that were interested in serving. “And I suggest you do that now,” he said.

Lee asked if the next plan would be “tweaking” the existing plan to reflect any changes a new committee might come up with.

“Many of those high priority tasks that we set for ourselves when we did the last comprehensive plan have been accomplished,” Hanss said. “So maybe there are some legacy projects we could work on…. But time has gone by.”

Hanss said the village is now looking at things like solar farms and other technologies the last planning committee didn’t event know about in 2012.

“So I think really you want to start right from scratch,” he said.

Wilke said the village could draw on work from the Climate Smart Communities group and the DRI process.

Hanss said the village trustees could submit names for prospective committee members and he would issue a press release calling for members.