Sullivan County prepares to redefine itself

By DAVID HULSE

MONTICELLO, NY — Forty years ago Sullivan County’s hotel-based economy looked a good deal like the fictional images portrayed in the movie “Dirty Dancing.” Towards the end of the movie, Jack Weston’s character, fictional resort hotel owner Max Kellerman, defined the beginning of the end when he complained that the new variety of competition was killing the traditional hotel business.

The real Sullivan County had its last comprehensive plan done by New York University in 1962. After 40 years, county officials are saying its time to take another look.

Why is it important?

A comprehensive plan, often called a “master plan,” defines how you want your community to develop and grow in the future. It sets a framework for the specific local laws, zoning and subdivision ordinances, that should translate the plan into public policy. It deals with land uses, open space protection, infrastructure and transportation needs, and any priority a community sets.

Pending new development has to be accommodated. A major unknown for Sullivan is the approvals for the planned gambling casinos. The plan has to provide directions, both with and without them.

To begin that process, Sullivan County scheduled a November 6 “summit meeting” for comprehensive planning, said county Legislative Chair Leni Binder (R-7).

Binder set out new countywide planning as one of her initial goals upon assuming the chair earlier this year. The question now is how to go about it, she said.

“We want to get our toes wet, get some feed-back. We can consider doing something in-house, getting help from Cornell [University] or state people. This was to be like a first get-together, to see whether we want a second date,” she said.

Sullivan County Planning Commissioner Alan Sorensen said his purpose was to introduce the people to the public participation process for the plan and get input on developing a series of goals and objectives.

The public participation would include a series of forums. This one was a first step and included an interactive visual preference survey, with 40 images of various residential, commercial and natural sites which participants were asked to judge aesthetically on a scale of negative-10 to positive-10.

“We’re looking to develop a consensus among the public and local planning boards in terms of the type of development we’d like to see, where we want it, and when concerns are identified, to develop a proposal to address them,” he said.

Sorensen admitted that tastes reflected in the survey results might differ, but he was confident that consensus could be reached.

“I think the programs people in the county have been working on over the past five years, in downtown renewal and beautification efforts, make me comfortable that the public wants to go in a direction I’m comfortable with, in part because they already have,” he added.

Some 800 announcements of the Wednesday meeting went out, but Sorensen says Sullivan will not rely entirely on meetings to gather public input.

“Much of what we’ll be asking the public to consider can be done on the Internet and I’m optimistic that we’ll develop a public participation program there,” he said.

The planning will recognize the differences among Sullivan communities.

“They will have unique issues and solutions. The Upper Delaware, for example, is a unique region and the comprehensive plan will develop means to serve residents in each of those areas,” Sorensen said.

The public policy developed is the work of the towns and villages, and the county will not be directing those decisions in a comprehensive plan, Binder said. She said she had emphasized that point in meetings with the towns’ supervisors. “I let everyone know that this is a county role, to map what exists from the towns, collating information, taking an overview to see where the towns are [in planning terms.]”

“We’re not going to tell them what to do. That’s not our goal. The idea is to see where we are and where want to go,” she said.