Comprehensive Plan Committee members united in goals
Twelve newly-minted members of Shelter Island’s Comprehensive Plan Advisory Committee gathered at Monday night’s introductory meeting, seemingly speaking with one voice.
Introducing themselves to one another, they agreed that the updated plan they will be helping to develop should focus on an extensive list of priorities including: economic development; protection of the environment; water quality; affordable housing; sustainability; climate change; needs for day care for children; attention to senior residents; and a meshing of the interests of permanent residents with those of people new to the Island or seasonal visitors.
What the members bring to the job are backgrounds in law, finance, communications, sociology, education, police work and construction.
Seven of the members are long-time Island residents; seven are women; four are long-term renters; four represent young couples; and others are business owners on the Island.
Some have long-term relationships with one another through community activities and family interactions. Others brought a new perspective as more recent arrivals to the town.
What all share, it quickly became obvious, is a love of Shelter Island, a desire for some changes to improve everyone’s lives and opportunities, but an unwillingness to give up what is unique about the town they have chosen to call home.
Representatives of the team of consultants — Peter Flinker of Dodson and Flinker of Florence, Mass., and Lisa Liquori of East Hampton-based Fine Arts and Sciences, expressed optimism about their work in helping to shape a Comprehensive Plan that will be a guide to the town’s future.
The plan must be a living document that guides the town’s development, not a book gathering dust on a shelf, Mr. Flinker said.
It’s important to see what worked in the 1994 plan and why an updated plan more than 10 years later failed to gain public support.
Mr. Hindin asked the 12 committee members to take time to read the original Comprehensive Plan and the document meant to update it prior to the next meeting on Dec. 7.
He also asked them to reach out to friends and neighbors for input now and throughout the next two years to provide a wide scope of information and data that residents want in a new Plan. He asked that they think about others in the community who could be valuable resources to the process.
The committee is empowered to continue through 2022, but could dissolve sooner if a concrete Plan is developed faster than expected, or it becomes obvious that it’s not working — something no one at this stage expects.
Member John Kerr perhaps hit on the key to ensuring that a new Comprehensive Plan is not ignored. He called on current and future Town Board members to link any future legislation they consider with the goals contained in a new Plan.
