Table of Contents

age-friendly communities

The city’s comprehensive plan promotes age-friendly principles by taking an intergenerational approach. It sets strategies to ensure that both parks and recreation (CHR-6 Strategy) and housing (HDC-3 Strategy) are designed to be intergenerational and integrated, serving residents at all stages of their lifecycles.

Built Environment and Health

The city’s comprehensive plan contains a Community Health and Recreation section in the Social element. The strategies and actions in this section address access to recreation, food, and healthcare. It includes maps of parks and open space and of food access.

Community Visioning

The city's comprehensive plan begins with a six-part vision statement (p. 3). The six components of the city's vision statement are:

1. Safe, Livable Neighborhoods
2. Model Education System
3. Vibrant Urban Center
4. Multi-Modal Transportation Hub
5. Green City
6. Prosperous Economy. 

It also provides a brief overview of the community visioning process (§ 2.0 Vision Statement)

Comprehensive Planning

This city's comprehensive plan won the APA New York Upstate Planning Excellence Award for Comprehensive Planning Winner in 2013 and was used to help refine the Sustaining Places comprehensive plan standards. The plan is based on a systems approach with three guiding concepts and five system principles (interconnections, feedback loops, resilience, synergies, and adaptive management). It has a strong and inclusive public participation process, which involved a wide-range of in-person and online strategies.

The plan's vision statement highlights six components:

1. Safe, Livable Neighborhoods
2. Model Educational System
3. Vibrant Urban Center
4. Multi-Modal Transportation Hub
5. Green City
6. Prosperous Economy.

The eight comprehensive plan systems — Community Form, Economy, Social, Transportation, Natural Resources, Housing and Neighborhoods, Utilities and Infrastructure, and Institutions — encompass 35 topical strategy categories.  Each goal contains linked references to related goals in other sections of the plan. The implementation section provides detailed narratives for next steps on each strategy listed in the plan, with lead agency, partnerships, and potential funding sources identified.  

Food Systems

This city's comprehensive plan addresses food systems issues in several of its elements, with the overarching goal of improving access to healthy foods for residents. The Community Health and Recreation goal area includes a strategy of increasing access to healthy food options with a range of associated actions (CHR-3). The Open Space goal area includes a strategy of supporting local food production with a range of associated actions (OS-3). The Neighborhood Services goal area includes a strategy of increasing access to healthy food options for all neighborhoods with a range of associated strategies (NS-7).

Social Equity

The city’s comprehensive plan addresses social and environmental equity in strategy SS-4. It requires that decisions made on capital improvement projects consider the impact on social and environmental equity and calls for the creation of a social service map to assist with decision making.

Solar Energy

The city's Comprehensive Plan addresses renewable energy in a number of places. In the plan's introductory section, a plan system principle of increasing system resilience cites the strategy of renewable energy development to reduce dependence on imported fossil fuels (p. 19).

For the topic of Economy, the plan includes a strategy of promoting and incentivizing "green jobs" (EMP-5 Strategy) with associated actions including creating pilot programs and job training materials for green skills such as renewable energy installation (Action A), streamlining permitting and other regulatory procedures for incorporating green improvements into development plans (Action E), and establishing a revolving loan fund for municipal and private energy-related improvements (Action G).

For the topic of Investment, an action for the strategy of making the city attractive to business development (INV-1 Strategy) is to develop a green technology park focusing on renewable energy production (Action I).

For the topic of Housing and Neighborhoods, an action for the strategy of promoting quality affordable housing through design or land use guidelines (HDC-8 Strategy) is to use renewable energy technologies into affordable housing projects to increase long-term affordability and reduce GHG emissions (Action B).

For the topic of Energy, the plan sets a goal of promoting energy conservation, efficiency, and renewable technology use to mitigate climate change (p. 157). Actions for the strategy of implementing city initiatives (EN-1 Strategy) include exploring renewable energy systems for city properties and facilities (Action C) and exploring the creation of a PACE program (Action D). Strategy EN-4 calls for incentivizing energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies in construction and rehab projects, with an associated action of developing municipal renewable energy pilots to educate the public (Action G).