New Castle to Conduct Public Survey to Continue Master Plan Process
New Castle officials are prepared to move ahead with a professionally administered survey of 300 randomly chosen residents as the town enters the next phase of its Master Plan update.
Last week, the town board unanimously agreed to hire Penn Schoen Berland, a market research and consulting firm that had been previously retained by the Chappaqua School District, to formulate the questions with help from the Master Plan Steering Committee. The questions will be based upon information contained in the recently completed Master Planning Public Engagement Report.
The firm will administer a roughly 20-minute survey that will be conducted over the telephone. It is scheduled to start in mid-September.
Supervisor Robert Greenstein said Penn Schoen Berland proposed collecting 200, 250 or 300 responses. However, 300 respondents would be most appropriate sample size since there are more than 6,000 households in town, he said. The school district, with fewer households, conducted a survey with 250 respondents.
“When you focus in on 300 people who are random that’s when you’re going to get a real good feel for the community,” Greenstein said.
The decision to move ahead with the survey came after the town board, planning board and Master Plan Steering Committee reviewed the Public Engagement Report in a joint work session late last Tuesday afternoon. The nearly 200-page document reflected all comments from attendees at a series of public meetings held in the spring. It also contained information collected from stakeholder meetings with various constituencies, including senior citizens, the League of Women Voters, the Chamber of Commerce, town staff, high school students and members from the Chappaqua Moms Facebook group, said Tiffany Zezula, managing director of the Land Use Law Center, which supervised the public outreach process for the town.
Zezula said while the report, which was completed late last month, focused on a wide variety of issues, the theme of improving downtown Chappaqua was a recurring focus among the participants. Many other issues that were raised, such as upgrading sidewalks or adding more restaurants, would have an effect on downtown Chappaqua, she said.
Issues were addressed under five broad categories: commercial development, environment and habitat, public roads and infrastructure, public services and recreation and housing.
“These are goals. These are large-scale goals that your public has asked for,” Zezula said. “It’s the way a Master Plan does get kicked off. This is really what your community vision is for the next few years. They had a lot of great suggestions that are in the report.”
Among the two boards and the steering committee that participated in the Aug. 12 joint work session, several attendees were skeptical whether conducting the survey would be of much benefit as officials are still trying to digest the data.
But Greenstein said that while the information collected by the Pace facilitators at the public outreach meetings was outstanding, he didn’t feel comfortable with officials starting to craft a long-term vision for the town based solely on the feedback at the meetings.
Zezula advised the two boards and the steering committee to conduct the survey.
“I definitely think a survey is needed,” Zezula said. “A lot of your residents talked about it and it’s a great way to get a different vision included.”
The survey will take between one and two weeks to complete and another week to compile the results, said Town Planner Sabrina Charney-Hull. It will cost the town $29,850.
Officials have estimated that the Master Plan process, which started late last year, will take 12 to 18 months to complete.
Martin has more than 30 years experience covering local news in Westchester and Putnam counties, including a frequent focus on zoning and planning issues. He has been editor-in-chief of The Examiner since its inception in 2007. Read more from Martin’s editor-author bio here. Read Martin’s archived work here: https://www.theexaminernews.com/author/martin-wilbur2007/
