Comprehensive Plan Update & Farmland Protection Plan

​

We held our third and final public meeting on April 25th from 6-8 pm at the Colden Fire Hall which was another well-attended event!  After giving a brief overview of process taken to date, the consultants shared with the group the core values and goals along with the draft recommendations for putting the plan into action.  This was put into a simple matrix that included insight on potential partnerships, estimated costs (beneficial for budgeting), and spaces for priority and timeframe.  The community was then invited to browse these tables and help give insight on what they thought the most important actions to take were.  This helped to fill out the details on the table and give more direct community direction for the plan - the ultimate goal of this document.  Following this step, the plan was further refined and presented to the Planning Board for recommendation to the Town Board for approval.  During this time, the Agricultural and Farmland Protection Plan was also refined, sent to the County Agricultural Board for their review and comment, and adopted by the Town Board on January 4, 2024.

​

We've made some significant progress on the plans, pulling together all of the information obtained from the community as well as the analysis and assessment that went along with the development of the community profile.  As a result of that effort, a DRAFT of each of the documents is now available for review on the  BACKGROUND page. **

 

So with all this, we're planning on holding our THIRD PUBLIC MEETING to not only give you a progress update, but to walk you through the updated sections of the documents and invite you to help identify the priorities within the implementation section.

​

Public meeting #3 will be the third and final meeting before the documents are then recommended to the Town Board for their required review and further action.  This meeting will be APRIL 25th from 6-8 pm at the Colden Fire Hall as past meetings have been.  Hope to see you there!

​

**Please keep in mind that these are still draft documents and that there's likely to be some formatting, grammar/spelling, and blanks to fill in from the third public meeting.  In addition, these documents still need to be vetted with the Town Board and go through other appropriate review processes (County Planning, County Ag Board...) before they can be called a "Final Draft" for Town Board action.

​

Public meeting #2 was held the evening of September 27, 2022, again at the Colden Fire Hall.  We had a great turnout similar to the numbers we had at public meeting #1 back in December, with some familiar faces as well as some fresh faces!  This meeting was a "check in" with the community to let them know what we've been up to thus far as far as internal work and community engagement, what we've heard, how we synthesized that information into a vision for the future, core values/goals, and objectives.  All this will lead to and support actions items that will be developed for later sections of the plan.  Following our brief presentation, there engaging discussion in the breakout session in which we received some feedback on work done to date, additional details on some information shared in the survey, and gained a little bit of insight into future land use patterns and agricultural protection areas.  All in all, a successful meeting!  Thanks to all those that attended and for your interest in being part of the process for you'd like to see in your community!

​

Public meeting #1 (kickoff) was held December 1, 2021 at the Colden Fire Hall with great success!  Approximately 47 people attended (including couples) from across the Town, got some background on the project and took part in a breakout session to share ideas/issues/opportunities on the future of the community.  We thank all those who were able to make it out and invite them (and others!) to attend future meetings!

​

Following the December public meeting (above),  a community survey was created for residents to provide additional input/feedback.  The intent of the survey (available online and in hardcopy)  was to be sure we've captured as much input as we can, though we certainly received a lot of great ideas at the first public meeting.  Those who weren't able to attend the public meeting for whatever reason - health concerns, scheduling, childcare, weather, life in general, etc. - had an easy opportunity to do so from the comfort of their own home!  The survey was for both the Comprehensive Plan update and the Agriculture and Farmland Protection Plan - the latter included a specific mapping exercise to identify any agricultural activities/ventures in the Town in order to really fine tune the extent of farming in Colden.  The survey ran for approximately  4-6 weeks, ending in April.