Comprehensive Plan deadline is history: Will take whatever time is needed

If Monday night’s Comprehensive Plan meeting started contentiously, tempers calmed as some members of the Comprehensive Plan Advisory Committee (CPAC), which is made up of residents, got their points across to the Task Force — Councilwomen Meg Larsen, BJ Ianfolla and Planning Board representative Julia Weisenberg — that they have felt “sidelined” by the process.

Since the Comprehensive Plan was restarted in 2022, CPAC member Lily Hoffman said she and her colleagues have not had the opportunity to directly address New York City-based BFJ Consultants, who are helping draft the Plan.

“I like to see results,” Ms. Hoffman said, maintaining it’s difficult to follow suggestions made that may have been incorporated or dropped in revisions to chapters in the draft.

A municipality’s Comprehensive Plan dictates policy on multiple fronts, including development, land use, the environment, transportation, housing and other aspects of community life. It’s not merely a statement of beliefs and a guide to successful planning, but shows a commitment to serious ideas to improve the municipality, which in turn is used to attract funding from the state, federal, county and other entities.

A presentation to the Town Board from BFJ last week included a controversial timeline for completing a new Comprehensive Plan, exacerbating concerns from both CPAC members and the public.

The Task Force stressed two important points:

• The slide show the consultants used in their presentation to the Town Board is not the Comprehensive Plan; it is simply an overview of progress and work remaining to be completed.

• The December timeline for completion is not expected to be met and work will continue as long as necessary to get the plan right.

Following Ms. Larsen’s outline of the outreach she and Councilwoman BJ Ianfolla have made to the public, CPAC member Ms. Hoffman congratulated them for their efforts, but said the meetings failed to get at real concerns.

Critical draft chapters on demographics and zoning haven’t been seen by CPAC members, and Ms. Hoffman noted the original CPAC members who started work in 2020 under different leadership had unanimously called for no zoning changes to be made until the Comprehensive Plan was complete and adopted.

What concerned Ms. Hoffman about the original references were mentions of what she saw as possible “spot zoning” to create hotel, marina and other special zoning districts.

Deputy Supervisor Amber Brach-Williams Monday night spoke to the question of stopping any changes in zoning until the Comprehensive Plan is adopted. The Town Board needs to address some zoning questions that affect pending applications, she said. The need for the town’s six-month moratorium on houses that exceed the 5,999 square feet of living space allowed by the town code couldn’t be ignored awaiting a new Comp Plan, she said.

CPAC member Petra Schmidt said there needs to be a consistency in the process to engage the public.

The opportunity for the public to weigh in with ideas of what they would like to keep or change continues, Ms. Larsen said. “We’ve gotten very good feedback” during the outreach to the community and input from CPAC members that have been useful, she added, pointing out that the process isn’t done.

By visiting with different groups, the outreach has revealed issues that are pertinent to their communities, Ms. Larsen said. For example, Montclair Colony and Silver Beach are concerned with salt water intrusion into their wells. People in other neighborhoods have different concerns and all are necessary to help inform the final Comprehensive Plan, she said.

“It’s literally an open conversation with whatever people want to bring up,” Ms. Larsen said about the sessions to date.

More public input will continue to be sought, beginning with the Thursday, Aug. 24 virtual workshop, which will start online at 7 p.m. and can be accessed from the town website at shelterislandtown.us on the Comprehensive Plan page. It will include an expected four breakout sessions to concentrate on specific issues. Following those breakout sessions, representatives of each session will report back on each discussion to the full group.

Although not all chapters are available yet, the conversations will include concerns about water use, zoning and other issues, Ms. Larsen said.

Open conversations are great, said Ben Dyett, a CPAC member and Democratic candidate for Town Board, but sometimes you have to drive the conversation toward issues people may not have raised.

As for when the missing chapters will be available, Ms. Larsen said she hoped to have them from the consultants by mid-September and promised CPAC members will receive them as soon as she gets them.

CPAC member Rebecca Mundy appealed to her colleagues to just keep moving forward and not get mired in completion dates.

“We have to be able to articulate the plan to get to the plan,” Ms. Schmidt said, appealing to the Task Force to make clear the steps to take place in the work ahead without linking them to specific dates for completion.

“It doesn’t matter if it gets done in this administration or the next,” Ms. Larsen said, abandoning that December date mentioned by consultants last week during their Town Board presentation.

Mr. Dyett offered a word of advice to all as the Monday night meeting neared an end: “Take deep breaths and continue on.”