The Jamestown City Council’s Public Safety Committee reviews the draft Urban Design Plan 2.0 with city Planner Cyrstal Surdyk and JRC executive director Peter Miraglia.
JAMESTOWN – The Jamestown City Council was given its first glimpse of a newly drafted Urban Design Plan on Monday night.
During the council’ Public Safety Committee meeting as well as the full council work session, city Planner Crystal Surdyk walked officials through the plan and highlighted some of the key components of the Jamestown Urban Design Plan 2.0. During the Public Safety meeting Surdyk was also joined by Jamestown Renaissance Corporation director Peter Miraglia. The JRC was the sponsor of the plan.
The Urban Design Plan 2.0 was once again drafted by Goody Clancy – who helped with the previous Urban Design Plan that was implemented in 2006 and which won both state and national awards.
Maraglia said the focus of the new UDP is similar to what the old one initiated a dozen years earlier.
“This new plan is an update to first plan and continues some of the themes, such as the Riverwalk development, making downtown more walkable, and expanding activities and events,” Maraglia said. “A major new focus in the new plan is including the Health and Wellness District were UPMC is, and with the Chautauqua Health Network Building that is being built, Western New York Urology, and that sort of thing.”
Maraglia said another new component of the plan is to work on creating another pedestrian access corridor from the Downtown to the Medical district, via Institute Street.
“One of the suggestions that may be of interest to the Public Safety Committee is they suggested opening up pedestrian access from downtown, near the High School down Institute Street through or above the railroad tracks to that new wellness district. That’s in this plan,” Maraglia noted.
And Maraglia added that the plan is useful for a number of reasons, primarily because it offers focus in what projects should be pursued in the coming years, while also helping to leverage money to make those projects a reality.
“These kinds of plans are really good for leveraging future grants and stuff. Because when you apply for things to try and help getting businesses get going, you can reference this and say, ‘Look. It’s in line with what we’ve planned’,” Maraglia said.
The plan was already reviewed and approved by the city planning commission but before it can be put in place it must also be acted on by the full city council. The council will likely have a public hearing on the plan before it votes on it later this spring.
Copies of the plan will be on the city’s website – jamestownny.net.
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