Village of Mamaroneck, NY Comprehensive Plan Update

The Village is pleased to announce that it is resuming the process of updating its Comprehensive Plan. The update process started several years ago and was nearly completed in 2020, the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Comprehensive Plan sets forth goals, priorities, policies, and recommendations for programmatic and physical investments in many aspects of the Village for the next five years and beyond. The Village’s existing Comprehensive Plan was adopted in 2012.

The latest draft of the Comprehensive Plan was produced in November 2020 (click link to open and download the PDF). The content in this draft incorporated two rounds of review and comment by Village Boards and Committees and the public. However, the draft was never posted for a final round of review and never adopted. The draft includes some emerging demographic trends and strategies for adapting to the pandemic, but at the time of writing it was still too early to see how things would play out.

Clearly, the pandemic has changed the way we live and work, has reshaped how governments and businesses operate, and has caused major demographic, economic, and social shifts. It has also aggravated ongoing challenges, one of the most difficult for many individuals and families across the country being the steep increase in housing costs. Of course, the pandemic hasn’t been the only agent of change:

• The death of George Floyd at the hands of police turned the country’s attention toward remedying the inequitable treatment of Black citizens, other people of color, and people with low incomes.
• For the region and, especially, the Village, the landfall of Hurricane Ida last year made very clear that flooding threatens the existence of Mamaroneck. Decades in the making, the Army Corps of Engineer’s plans for the Mamaroneck and Sheldrake Rivers are finally proceeding into design and engineering. However, these plans are not a panacea; the Village has to build on the work that takes place through this project to further protect the Village from floods.
• The U.S. Census Bureau undertook a nationwide census. Examining demographic, social, economic, and housing data trends is important for any community planning for its future, and so the figures in the November 2020 draft will be updated with the latest available data.
• The Russian invasion of Ukraine has contributed to major cost increases in gasoline and contributed to an already tight supply chain. The resulting price increases have hit home.

Clearly, the pandemic has changed the way we live and work, has reshaped how governments and businesses operate, and has caused major demographic, economic, and social shifts.

Over the next several months, working in conjunction with various Village Boards and Committees, the structure and content of the November 2020 draft will be updated. We anticipate that a revised draft will be produced in September or October and posted for public review and comment.

You are welcome to provide comments, suggestions, and opinions on any section of the November 2020 draft and to share ideas for the next draft by e-mailing contact@planvom.org. However, note that much of the content of this draft is outdated.

Click here to download and view a PDF of the November 2020 draft of the Village’s Comprehensive Plan Update. Note that the red typeface in the document represents content that was modified or added based on comments received from the public and/or Village Boards and Committees on a previous draft.

To view the Project Schedules, click here.

Discussing the Second Draft of the Comprehensive Plan Update had been on the agenda of the Board of Trustees’ July 13 Work Session. Due to time constraints, the BOT chose to schedule a special meeting in order to dedicate sufficient time to discuss the content of the Second Draft. This special meeting, which will be a Work Session, will take place on Monday, September 21 at 5 p.m. Please visit the previous post to see updates to the timeline (in red).

The first full draft of the Village’s Comprehensive Plan Update is complete and ready for you to review. Click here to download the file (.pdf, 20mb).

The file is designed to be viewed on-screen on your mobile phone, tablet, or computer (i.e., the cover and table of contents are “clickable”). The file also can be printed out double-sided or single-sided (note that it is more than 200 pages long).

The following are several questions you might consider while reviewing this draft:

1. Do the recommendations/strategies within the draft plan substantively address each of the updated Vision Statements that are listed on page 12?

2. Which chapter/topic interests or concerns you the most? Do you have any specific comments or ideas for more goals, recommendations, and/or strategies for that chapter/topic?

3. Are there any actions that the Village or groups within the Village have undertaken in the past five years that are not accounted for in the draft plan but that should be?

Please send your comments through the Your Feedback section of this website. If you would like to put your thoughts into a Word document, e-mail the file to contact@planvom.org. Please send us your comments by Friday, November 15, 2019.

If you would like to review background information on the Comprehensive Plan Update prior to reading the draft, visit the Frequently-Asked-Questions (FAQ) page.

During the past year, the Village Board of Trustees has been involved in discussing the Moratorium Study and deliberating over changes in the Village’s regulations pertaining to multi-family residential development. Last month, the Village BOT adopted PLL-C 2019, a slate of rezoning proposals that reduces the potential of multi-family development in certain parts of the Village, retains it in others, and institutes policies to ensure the production of affordable housing units integrated into market-rate developments. For more information on the rezoning, please click here.

During this time, the process of drafting the Comprehensive Plan Update continued, but any further public and stakeholder engagement was put on hold. The last major public engagement event was the workshop held on September 27, 2018 (click here for more details and to download the workshop exhibits).

We are pleased to report that a preliminary draft of the Comprehensive Plan Update has been produced and is currently under review by the Planning Department. The next steps are to produce a revised version of the document and resume engagement with Village stakeholders, which includes posting a draft of the document online so residents and other interested parties can review it and provide the Planning Department with comments, questions, and suggestions.

Since the September 27 workshop, the attention on the Comprehensive Plan Update has been on developing the content of its two special focus areas: Sustainability and Residential Neighborhood Character. The Committee for the Environment’s (CFTE’s) Sustainability Subcommittee has been working with the Planning Department team to prepare and review drafts of the Sustainability section of the plan, which will be shared with the CFTE and other relevant committees for comment. On the topic of Residential Neighborhood Character (which is broader than the name implies because it also involves environmental and fiscal matters), a partial working draft of the section has been produced, which will serve as the basis for a discussion with the Planning Board at the end of this month.