A "NEW" BUREAU OF PLANNING   (585-428-6953)

After several months of interviewing Commissioners, Bureau Directors, staff, and meeting with community leaders it was clearly necessary to provide increased planning services to local governments, community agencies, and the general public. As a result, the following functions will be provided by Planning:

• Research, Statistics, and GIS Mapping - includes census demographics, CIP & CDBG analysis, community development, economic development, infrastructure, parks, public schools, public safety, New York labor, health care & human service;
• Comprehensive Planning - 2010 Comprehensive Plan monitoring and updates, area plans (Center City, waterfront, significant projects, etc.), and county planning (Renaissance Square, regional transportation council, etc.); and
• Community Planning - NBN sector neighborhood support and CDC/ Community organization support.

A reconstituted and restructured "Neighbors Building Neighborhoods" (NBN) will serve as the vehicle for a comprehensive citizen planning process supported by a unified Bureau of Planning and Neighborhood Initiatives. The community planning role will be advisory to the executive and legislative branches of city government on land use, quality of life, and neighborhood budget issues.

The objective of a restructured planning effort is to develop a simplified process to update the Renaissance Plan and the 10 NBN Sector plans for ultimate adoption by City Council. The restructured Bureau of Planning (BP) will provide appropriate staff support to undertake and implement a process that:

I. Ensures sector plans identify and deal with critical land use, zoning, infrastructure and community resource issues.

A. Utilizes design charrettes, if necessary, to solicit community input on land use, planning and design issues within the sectors.
 
B. Revises the roles, responsibilities, powers and functions of the sector committees to include review and comment on major zoning and land use issues; review and comment on capital improvement projects and other public infrastructure funding; and a role in the monitoring and implementation of NBN plan recommendations.

II. Revises the NBN sector committee membership structure to ensure that all neighborhoods, populations, civic groups and commercial interests within each sector are fairly and adequately represented.

A. BP will assist the ten (10) NBN Sector Committees, building on the PEP (Participatory Evaluation Process) Evaluation Report, to ensure that NBN meets basic standards and criteria for citizen representation. The goal is to improve citizen participation in the NBN community planning process.

B. BP will require that all neighborhood projects and plans of significant scale are reviewed through the appropriate NBN Sector as a precondition to City Hall endorsement and Planning Commission review.

C. BP recommends that the current sector geography remain in place over the near term, but revise the sector boundaries to match census tract boundaries. This will make it easier to prepare demographic information and aid in data collection and analysis as well as overall NBN plan implementation. NBN sector geography may change over time in response to other service delivery geographies (i.e.: NET boundaries).

D. BP will ensure that recommendations from NBN planning efforts are used to update the comprehensive plan and are implemented through the city’s operating budget, capital budget, CDBG, and zoning review processes.

III. BP will update the Renaissance 2010 Plan using the new NBN sector planning process. A monitoring and implementation process and structure for the Renaissance Plan will be established that institutionalizes and incorporates plan recommendations into existing city budget and land use review processes.

A. BP will develop a Comprehensive Plan Benchmark Status Report as a statistical base-line for revising the 2010 plan.

B. BP will develop a Comprehensive Plan Strategy Inventory Report detailing progress towards strategy implementation and task completion.

C. BP will establish a Cross Departmental Review Committee responsible for reviewing the benchmark status and strategy inventory reports. The Committee will be responsible for recommending adjustments to the comprehensive plan as a preliminary report to the Mayor’s senior management group for review and discussion.

D. Senior management shall review the preliminary report; provide feed-back, and authorize BP to begin the community involvement NBN review process.

E. Once community consensuses are reached, a revised draft "Renaissance" plan is circulated for senior management, City Council, and community comment. A revised document is then submitted for adoption.

1. As individual NBN plans are revised, they undergo the same review and revision process; cross department review committee, senior management, community reviews, and City Council adoption.