Town of Cortlandt and the Village of Buchanan Announce Series of Public Information Meetings & Workshops for their Joint Local Waterfront Revitalization Program

Cortlandt, New York January 28, 2021

The Town of Cortlandt and Village of Buchanan are hosting a public information meeting and a series of public workshops toward the development of their Joint Local Waterfront Revitalization Program (LWRP). The Hudson River waterfront and environs is the focus of the initiative.

The first meeting in the series is a joint Public Information Meeting online on Thursday, February 11, 2021 at 7pm to review preliminary ideas about improving the local waterfront area. The public is invited and encouraged to attend this online zoom meeting. This meeting will include an overview of the program, summary of progress to date, presentation of the findings of a community survey and a review of some of the initial waterfront revitalization project ideas and preliminary land use concepts as well as, inform the public about the grant we received from the State for this study. 

In addition to the public information meeting, a series of interactive online workshop meetings are planned in the following weeks to discuss ideas in more detail for the specific areas of Annsville, Village of Buchanan, Verplanck, Montrose & Crugers hamlets. Information about how to attend the meeting, and to sign-up for the online workshops is available on the town and village websites at:

www.townofcortlandt.com/lwrp

www.villageofbuchanan.com/lwrp

The meeting series schedule includes:

GENERAL MEETING:

Information Meeting (via Zoom invite on web pages above) February 11th, 7pm 

WORKSHOPS: (Attendees must sign up / register on Zoom in advance)

Annsville Area Workshop (Please Sign up / Register) - February 18th, 7pm

Village of Buchanan Workshop (Please Sign up / Register) - February 24th, 7pm

Verplanck Area Workshop (Please Sign up / Register) - March 4th, 7pm

Montrose/Crugers Area Workshop (Please Sign up / Register) - March 11th, 7pm

This intermunicipal project to develop a local waterfront revitalization program (LWRP) is a collaborative effort of the Town of Cortlandt and the Village of Buchanan. Objectives of the waterfront revitalization program include helping maintain and protect water quality and the natural environment, enhancing public waterfront access and waterfront recreational activities and restoring and revitalizing formerly used properties to stimulate economic development and improve quality of life.

The town has agreed to take the lead in managing the waterfront planning initiative and has received a grant through the Environmental Protection fund to support the preparation of the LWRP by the New York State Department of State. Each municipality will have independent review and adoption of the final LWRP. 

Cortlandt Supervisor Linda Puglisi noted “We are excited about our continued partnership with the Village on this waterfront planning initiative as it dovetails well with a number of important issues we are facing as a community and we are pleased that the state is supporting our efforts with grant funding.” Buchanan Mayor Knickerbocker noted that the waterfront revitalization program will help the Town and Village “ . . .  in a number of ways, from the ongoing enhancement of our waterfront parks to our planning for economic development projects that can contribute to our tax base and create employment opportunities.”

A project advisory committee with members appointed by the Town and Village boards has been guiding the project since its inception.  In addition to support provided by professional staff from the Town and Village, a consulting team led by Behan Planning and Design with BFJ Planning and the CSA Group is assisting in this initiative.  Chris Kehoe, project manager and planner with the town noted “We are still relatively early in the process in terms of development of the program and this is an opportune time to be sharing this status update with the public and garnering ideas from the community.”

Individuals not able to attend any of the meetings are directed information provided on the town or village webpage and may use the link to the Comment Form to provide feedback.