Okay.

Good evening, everybody.

My name's Owen Kearney.

I'm deputy commissioner for the City of Syracuse Planning and Sustainability Division.

And I am excited to welcome you to our kickoff meeting or at least public engagement meeting for the city's comprehensive plan 2050.

We're going to go ahead and get started here in just a minute.

But I am excited to excited to turn it over to our project team who are going to introduce themselves.

But the city is taking on this project.

It's been over a decade since we've last updated our comprehensive plan.

This team has been working really for the past almost year prepping to get to this place.

And we're excited to provide an overview of our work to date and ultimately our work moving forward and specifically talk about what is a comprehensive plan, why is it important for the city to update our comprehensive plan and how you can get involved.

And that's really the goal here.

You're going to hear more about opportunities even later this week to get involved, online tools to participate, and just generally how you as a city resident, as a city property owner can help shape this important long-range planning document.

So with that, just a quick note.

And I'm going to again turn it over to the project team to do that.

But we are going to take a question and answer, sort of have a question and answer period here at the end of the of our slides, which we anticipate to be about 20, 25 minutes.

So please use the QA tab at the bottom of your screen to record your questions, and then again, we'll walk through them towards the end of the meeting.

So with that, thanks for being here.

And again, I'll turn it over to Pete and Charles to introduce themselves and get started.

Thank you.

All right.

Thanks, Owen.

I'm Pete from CZB, along with my colleague Charles, and also joined on this webinar with Gisela, Sarah, and Radia from EDR.

And we're the consulting team that's working with the city of Syracuse on this new comprehensive plan.

So for the next uh few minutes, what we'll be doing, as Owen mentioned, is providing an overview of this project, uh, just a simple explanation of what you can expect from this comprehensive planning update, what a comprehensive plan is, why it's important to the city, um, and the process that we're going through, the timeline.

Um, and then we'll be talking about the different opportunities that the public will have, that all of you will have in the coming weeks uh to add your voice to this process and also the opportunities that will be coming up later on in this year to help inform this uh important long-range plan for the city of Syracuse.

Um just uh a quick reminder that uh we'll be uh taking questions as we go through this uh webinar.

There's a QA uh tool that you'll find on your Zoom toolbar.

Um please use that to submit your questions.

And as we get towards the end of this webinar, uh we'll go through and answer them uh in order.

Um, and uh we really encourage you if there's anything that uh that isn't clear, or if you, you know, just questions you have about about planning and and how it how it fits into the context of this comprehensive planning process, please do uh submit a question.

So we'll start with the project overview.

Um this comprehensive plan is Syracuse's first major update to the comprehensive plan since 2012.

Um so uh, you know, most communities in New York State have comprehensive plans that serve as long-range um direction for the municipality that outline goals that outline uh priorities for communities.

Sometimes there are 10-year, 20-year planning horizons, sometimes longer.

Um, but the goal here is long-term planning, providing direction uh on a whole host of issues potentially, um, and um really providing direction on what goes where, land use issues, development issues, um, resource allocation issues, providing guidance on how the city invests um its resources, what it invests in in terms of infrastructure, programs, all of those things.

Um, and so the way to think about uh a comprehensive plan and its importance is that it really is one of the most important guides for the common council, um, for city staff, for the city's partners and thinking about how to craft budgets, um, how to allocate uh tools for for improving infrastructure and programs, um, and also an important role of the comprehensive plan is um providing recommendations on how to potentially um update the development code, uh, which influences uh what new development looks and feels like.

And also an important role of the comprehensive plan is providing recommendations on how to potentially update the development code, which influences what new development looks and feels like.

This planning process is really focused on three important aspects of great planning.

One of them is getting the big things right.

So that is really trying to use this planning process to prioritize what is most important to the community, recognizing that everything that Syracuse, the community would like to do, it doesn't necessarily have the resources to do.

So it's really critical to get clear about what it prioritizes and how to how to use limited resources to best achieve the city's utmost priorities.

So that's that's one important leg of this process.

The second is planning for what is known.

So that's using the process to really uncover the information, data.

Some of that is quantitative, it's it's number crunching, some of that is qualitative.

It's listening to the community to understand what's happening, what has been happening, and how should that influence how the city thinks about its next moves in relation to its priorities.

Those things represent a really important framework for uh for making sure that the plan is actually adaptable and useful, even when things that it doesn't anticipate occur.

So those are the three really important legs of planning that this process is trying to reveal.

Um this is a process that began last year, um, January to October of 2025.

Um EDR and CZB worked on with the city on a phase one effort to really get a sense of um how the 2020 12 comprehensive plan implementation has been going, um, to talk to stakeholders in the community on a preliminary basis to understand some of the important issues that are out there, um, and also to lay the groundwork for the full-scale planning process that involves public engagement, which starts with uh with this webinar tonight.

So, this phase one work last year, there were interviews with a number of different um city teams, um, that 2012 plan audit to understand the goals and actions that were recommended back then, what went well, um, and what can be learned from from what was implemented and what can be learned from what wasn't implemented from that planning process to inform what we're doing now, um, an updated community profile to begin to understand some of the important development trends and other influences that are acting on the city right now that will uh that will be an important part of understanding what is known about uh Syracuse's planning context today.

Um, and then there was, as I said, some preliminary stakeholder outreach to understand what what individuals who are actively working every day to uh to help make the city better, what they see as important issues that need to be um uh addressed by by the new plan.

So all of those efforts led to the production of a phase one summary that is um on the uh the project website at the city's website right now.

And later on in this webinar, we'll provide the QR code for finding that uh that that project web page.

As we move forward from phase one, where we are right now is at the beginning of phase two.

And phase two has three components.

Um, phase two A started in in March with some preliminary work, discussions with city staff, um, beginning to work with a project steering committee.

Um, and this work extends into next month, where we're beginning the process of understanding what are the priorities or big things that this project should uh be centered around, um doing some supplemental deep dive analysis into issues that have been raised so far, um, and to uh begin to understand what the community, what the public uh prioritizes, um, and uh what core values um are at the heart of how the community makes decisions and thinks about the future.

So all of those pieces are part of phase two A, and that will be coming to a head next month, and we'll be informed by the public engagement round that starts with tonight and will include open houses and a virtual open house, which we'll describe in the next part of this webinar.

This will all roll into phase two B, starting in August and going through the rest of 2026, where our team will help the City of Syracuse translate uh the core values into some clear planning principles for that decision-making framework.

Um, we'll begin to piece together some scenarios that will be useful in interacting with the steering committee with the city staff, as well as the public and understanding different ways that Syracuse can achieve its priorities and what there is a public appetite and willingness to do in terms of which which actions, which strategies to achieve uh the city's priorities, and and it will really culminate in the cementing of that decision-making framework.

And and then phase two C is where all of this uh all this work takes us.

Uh, we head into 2027, where that decision-making framework will be used to begin to piece together a series of priority-focused strategies to uh to be part of the the action planning component of the uh comprehensive plan.

The new plan will be drafted for for multiple rounds of uh public review and feedback.

Um, and then there will be a review, revision, and adoption process as our team works with the city and the public on bringing um a finalized plan uh that the common council is enthusiastic about supporting.

Um the project committees that I I mentioned that are an important part of this work include a steering committee of over 20 folks that we have met with once so far.

We have another meeting with them this week as part of five total meetings in 2026 to help guide the process uh this project through those uh three parts of phase two.

Um, and then we are also working with a technical advisory committee of city staff uh with very deep operational knowledge about um uh how different departments work, um existing projects in the city, of which there are many to keep uh track of uh and ongoing projects that need to be integrated into the new comprehensive plan.

So that's the uh the high-level overview of the project.

We'll move on now to uh the opportunities that you'll have to add your voice to the project.

Um if you have any questions about what we just presented uh in terms of the project background, uh, do remember to use the QA tool at the on your Zoom toolbar uh to uh insert and submit those questions, and we'll be getting to those uh in just a few minutes.

So the opportunities for uh for for everyone to be involved in the project in 2026, really focus on on two different tools that are that are closely related.

Um will have a series of open house road shows in uh starting uh at the end of this month and into July.

Another round of this work will be done in November.

These will be in-person events held at different points in the community where people can come out, interact with members of the project team, including city staff, um, and provide feedback on important questions uh that are relevant to that particular stage of the planning process.

Um, and then virtual open houses uh that will mirror the in-person versions so that anyone who isn't able to attend the in-person events will have an opportunity to answer every question that is being uh asked in person.

Um so people will have uh a number of different ways to interact with the project team and to provide feedback.

The virtual open houses will also be done uh in this June-July time frame, uh opening uh uh right now and closing around uh July 20th.

Um, and then uh another round of the virtual open house will be held in November.

So the in-person events um that start out this week uh include uh the uh one on Thursday at the Hazard Branch Library.

All of the events that you see on this list are from 5:30 to 6.30 p.m.

Um next week on uh Tuesday, June 30th, there will be another event at the Northeast Community Center.

Um then as we move into July, there will be an event on Thursday, July 9th at the uh Pettit Branch Library, also 5.30 to 6.30.

And then you see the the last um one in this round will be the uh Tuesday, July 14th event at the Southwest Community Center.

And so at all of these open house events, what you can anticipate if you attend any of them is that you'll learn more about the project, a little more depth uh in detail on the project background.

You'll also help us understand what direction you think Syracuse is headed.

That's an important question that we've been working through with our project steering committee.

And so we'll be asking the general public at these open houses as well as the virtual open house.

Do you think Syracuse is on the rise?

Do you think it's uh, you know, in the on the decline?

Do you think it's rebounding?

Uh, there are a number of ways that uh the public will be able to answer that question and provide some some important depth of uh of their uh how their experience informs their their sense of what direction Syracuse is going and how that should be part of our thinking uh when it comes to the the plan development.

Um we'll also be asking the public a very critical question about um core values, what values are at the heart of the Syracuse community that help to inform decision making and um and how to make the comprehensive plan, how to make sure the plan has fidelity to the community's core values, as well as uh getting a sense of of what are the big things, what are the utmost priorities that the public thinks should be part of this process.

Um and then uh uh one last piece for this round is we're asking uh people to tell us what their favorite street in Syracuse is and why it's their favorite street.

Um it's kind of a fun question, um, but it also tells our team a lot about what the community values and what the community might want to prioritize.

Um, thinking about your favorite streets, it might it might have something to do with the physical infrastructure of that street, the social environment of that street.

Uh, there are a number of ways that we can interpret that information to help us understand what people want to see more of in Syracuse.

So that that virtual open house, which again is basically a mirror image of the in-person events will be held uh uh starting today through July 20th.

Um again, if you're unable to make it um uh to any of those in-person events, the virtual open house uh is is the way to go.

Uh, there will be promotional flyers distributed at community centers, senior centers, and a number of different other uh uh community facilities to help get the word out.

And one way that you can help as a member of the public that is interested in Syracuse's long range planning is to encourage your friends and neighbors to also uh take uh part in this uh virtual open house.

So however you uh you know, uh get the message out in your network, that's that's a way that you can be an important contributor to this process by by helping to magnify the impact of of your the voices of your your friends and neighbors.

Um that uh survey is also accessible from the project website.

The project website is located on the City of Syracuse's website.

This QR code uh is a way to arrive at that website.

You can also Google it and find it very quickly.

Um and so you'll on that website you'll find project background and updates similar to what we'll be offering to the public at the open house events over the next few weeks.

You'll be able to find access to previous plans and materials, including that phase one summary that I mentioned a few minutes ago.

There'll be news about the additional engagement opportunities as we go through this process.

Um and as we get to the point of having draft materials available for the public to review and respond to the project website will be the place to find it.

Um and all the while, if anyone has any questions or suggestions or concerns about the planning process, uh sending a message to planning at syr.gov is a way to uh get into direct touch with uh members of the city's planning team.

And so with that, um, we'll move into the Q ⁇ R uh portion of of the webinar.

And uh I'll turn it over to Sarah.

Well, we don't actually have any questions at the moment, but Pete, I did want to just make one correction to the public meeting schedule.

The slide that you have says that this Thursday's meeting is um at Hazard Branch Library, but it's actually at Pettit.

Um those should be reversed.

And if it's helpful, I can kind of pull up the City of Syracuse website that has the correct dates and times, um, which will give people a glimpse of what that looks like if you were to go there and also we'll allow you to see the correct schedule.

So give me just a second here.

Um can folks see that.

Okay.

So should you kind of follow that QR code or get onto the City of Syracuse website and make your way to the comprehensive plan page, you'll see the public meetings posted kind of right and center.

And that's where you can get the information about the correct dates and times.

But just to just to say once again, this Thursday is the public meeting is a PEDIT branch library from 5 to 6.30.

Yes.

And while while you have that up, if folks, I see there is one uh question, which I'll turn it back over to Sarah here.

You also see uh for those of you looking at the screen, there is um the third box down on the on the right-hand side of the page is uh the virtual open house.

And so that is um an opportunity that's worth checking out if you're not able to make any of those meetings um over the next few weeks.

Uh that is an opportunity to as Pete mentioned to walk through a series of um slides and questions and and to add some some structured input anyway.

But we'd love to see you at one of those meetings.

Many of us uh I'm gonna be at all of them uh and and interested in talking to folks directly.

But uh with that, I'll turn it back over to Sarah to moderate some questions.

Sure.

We do have a couple of questions coming in now.

The first from Jen, simple semantics question.

The current comp plan is named 2040, and the one you are working on is 2050.

What does the year mean?

And maybe that's a question for well, Owen looks ready to answer it.

I was gonna say Pete, but whichever of you want to say.

A few of us work closely with on the update to our zoning code.

But um ultimately, I think that that 2040 for the previous plan and the 2050 for our current plan, um it denotes that it's a long-term plan.

Uh, and the yes, that that is you, I see it.

Uh Jen, good to thanks for being here.

Uh good to hear from you.

And and it's ultimately what that signifies is that this is a long-term plan.

This is not necessarily about just planning for 2027 or 2028, but it's really taking a 10, 15, in this case, even 20 year view about identifying city goals and our strategic priorities.

And as you know uh very well, uh, we have limited resources, just like many of our own budgets at home or at work, um, limited budgets that the city, how the city allocates those resources is critical.

And so this is a long-term plan to begin thinking about how we do it, um, whether that's infrastructure, whether that's housing, whether that's economic development, or uh our parks and um sustainability initiatives.

There's a variety of ways the communities prioritize.

And so what we're trying to do is engage our community and all of you on this call to start thinking about what are our long-term priorities?

What are the things, as Pete noted, what are the big things that we have to get right?

And we can use our current data to help guide that, but ultimately it's a long-term plan.

And I'll I'll stop there, Pete.

I don't know, uh, or Charles if you have anything to add to.

Okay.

Pretty complete answer.

Thanks, Owen.

Um, next question from John Is the membership of the Citizen Steering Committee public information?

And if so, where can those names be found?

John, thanks.

Thanks for being here.

Um, I I don't know if that's posted, but happy to share that information.

It's surely not secret.

Um, it's about two dozen folks from our community, and that's something that um that we can post on our on our website on our project website.

Okay.

Um and then a question from Peggy.

Is this a wrap-up from the community meetings we had last year?

I was part of the Eastwood group, which sounds to me like it may have been about housing, perhaps, or um probably not this project, but Owen, you might you might know.

Yeah, Peggy, that uh again, thank you for being here also.

Um that we did not do any public engagement last year.

We were we were largely kind of doing internal work, really prepping for the work that the rollout of uh of everything you're you're hearing tonight and over the the next few weeks, and really is as Pete mentioned, we're we're gonna be working on this project through end of next summer.

So we we've got about 14-15 months ahead of us.

Um that was presumably Peggy, uh the work that was done last um last year was for the housing strategy.

Uh the work that was done last um last year was for the housing strategy.

Uh Eastwood is a priority area.

And um that I imagine was related to that.

My my colleague uh Michelle Skopanski uh and her team were leading meetings over there.

So I'm if it was outside of the the TNT um the typical TNT schedule, then that was like likely a housing strategies, which while that is a different uh planning exercise, that is um, and that's work that some of the folks, I know Pete and Charles both worked uh directly on the development of the city's housing strategy.

Uh they're in the implementation phase of that now, and and you've probably read about some of the work that both our our common council and our city staff and the and the project team is doing in some of those priority neighborhoods.

Salt Springs, um, Tip Hill, um work is is started there to um to prioritize again housing resources and investment in our housing stock.

So uh long answer, but this is a separate project, but very much related uh to that work.

Okay.

Thanks, Owen.

Um, and Rachel is asking a question that I'm not fully getting, but so Rachel, you may have to clarify if somebody isn't doesn't know what this means.

But it says TLA's question mark.

What do they mean?

CZB, EDP.

So I I the CZB um and and EDR are our um consultant teams, uh, Rachel.

Uh those are if you're looking at um perhaps oh, I think you're looking at perhaps the the project website, uh they're listed there.

EDR is a Syracuse-based planning engineering design firm that is is leading this, and we're also working with CZB, Charles uh, Pete are part of that team.

Uh they're a firm that that um uh that does work nationwide uh with communities, municipalities on a variety of different things, but um uh a big focus on comprehensive plans.

So uh they're that is our project team that the city is working with, and myself is the project lead um uh are working closely with them uh to help us uh not only have conversations with with folks in our community, but but also take uh a broader view.

What are national trends?

Uh what are other communities finding success with when they're thinking about long-range planning?

And and those are folks that are working with communities that are like us, some folks that are other communities that are perhaps not like us, um, but they're able to help inform our local work here in Syracuse with sort of national best practices and ideas.

And so we've got really kind of a great balance of of local folks and EDR, Sarah, Gisela, uh, Radia, um, who who know Syracuse have worked with the city on a variety of things over the years, but also uh that that national outlook uh through the CCB team.

Three letter acronyms.

Yeah, Rachel Claire.

Thank you for clarifying.

TLA is another three-letter acronym for three-letter acronyms.

So understood.

Thank you.

Uh okay.

Um Jen is promising that this is her last question.

Does this planning include land use development plan 2040, land use map, bicycle plan 2040, historic preservation plan 2040, public art plan 2040, sustainability plan 2040.

These are all components of the previous comprehensive plan.

It was sort of divided into chapters, which were really like their own kind of separate um uh plan, sub-plans, really.

Um, and they were pretty complete.

So I think the question is kind of about how the structure of what we're doing now relates or doesn't relate to what was done, you know, 15 years ago or so.

Yeah, that very good question.

Um, so it is uh the short answer, uh Jen, is that it is a different format.

And while it covers many of the same things, our work um is going to consider all of those elements.

Uh future land use, uh historic preservation, sustainability is going to be a big part of this.

Um, it's not going to be those individual chapters.

Now I will say uh parks is considering a parks master plan.

Um the city's the public uh department of public works is updating their uh bicycle master plan in the in the coming months.

Um so some of these things will be updated, but they will be done um through those respective departments.

uh historic preservation sustainability is going to be a big part of this um it's not going to be those individual chapters now I will say uh parks is considering a parks master plan um uh the city's the public uh department of public works is updating their uh bicycle master plan in the in the coming months um so some of these things will be updated but they will be done um through those respective departments so uh a little bit of a different format take it considering many of those broad topics that you've list there um I I don't think this is going to be as focused on you know the for instance the bike master plan I don't imagine that this is a plan that's going to have specific areas for new you know new new bike infrastructure this is a broader plan uh it it will probably tie into how um connecting our neighborhoods uh to parks and to downtown is critical for neighborhood development uh for recreational opportunities but but it's going to be a broader plan um that that really kind of incorporates all the elements that that you list there so a little bit of a different format but um and the one thing I should mention if you haven't uh checked out the the city's uh recently uh released our climate action plan uh so that is something that's posted on our our planning website uh if you haven't taken a look at that uh that is a deep dive into um how both the city operations but also community facing uh work that we can do collectively to improve uh climate resilience so um you know a little the the format has changed over the past decade but all of the things you mentioned will be uh considered as part of this planning exercise okay thanks Owen um another question from Woo is there any new community engagement strategy that will be applied compared to the last city's comprehensive plan yeah um there are I mean some things will be uh thank you for the question some things will be the same in the sense that we will be out in the community talking to residents um some new things will uh be available like the survey like the webinar um we know people can't always attend evening meetings during the week that's not necessarily a good fit for everybody so we have opportunities like um uh uh the virtual open house if you haven't taken a look at that go to our website um click on virtual open house that really much of that in uh in includes what you're what folks that are doing the in-person meetings over the the next three weeks are going to see at some of those uh sessions again first uh is this this week at Pettit Branch Library over on the off Westcott Street that kicks off at 5 30 this Thursday night.

So certain elements will be the same as far as community engagement there will be some new strategies that we're using um and again if if you have direct questions or want to set up a time to talk to me in more detail planning at um planning at SYR.gov that's me so happy to to talk in more detail about that if you have ideas or just want to reach out and talk to me um directly and I'm I'm reading I'm reading the next one which I I see is a little bit of a longer one uh Jacob uh noted uh their concern about crime drug overdoses um the effects that has on children uh accountability um I I had a little bit more time than you to read this but I think what this comes down to you know people out there in the community have a lot of feelings about the city of Syracuse and also a lot of ideas for things that should be happening here and it in essence this is a a comment that's getting at you know is that is there really going to um be a meaningful way to contribute comments through this um through this process and you know where where and how can people do that if they want to yeah um that's that's a real good point and it it sounds as I've been looking at at Jacob's comments that how do I how do I talk to somebody how do I share information that that perhaps wasn't received or nobody acted on it.

Come see me at one of those uh meetings again first uh is this Thursday at Pettit if that's not a good fit reach out to me at planning at SYR.gov interested to hear more about your ideas and as you note creating jobs creating um building economic sustainability for folks that live in our neighborhoods is a critical part to the city's future success.

And without that we're you know we're gonna be limited in what we how successful we can be very simply put.

So I know Jacob is mentioning he had some ideas that he'd like to share.

Please come see me, reach out to me via email.

Or as I said, attend one of those upcoming meetings, and I'll I'll keep an eye out for you, Jacob.

But happy uh happy to talk more about that as part of this project.

Again, this is really the first of what we imagine to be probably close to a dozen uh public meetings really over the next um uh six, eight uh ten months.

So and then one potentially the last question, and a very good wrap-up one, if so.

Um how from on, how can the community stay up to date on the progress of these projects?

And are there ways for the community to help?

The the best way um we are working closely with the city's communications department uh to provide regular updates, things like press releases, things like that, which will make its way into the media.

Not everybody's looking at those, but uh city social media will be updated uh before all of these meetings.

Um so if if that's the way that that you kind of stay in touch with with city government, please keep an eye out there.

It will all be posted reminders for all of these upcoming meetings.

The project web page, if you haven't taken a look at that, uh perhaps we can put that back up on the screen and share um how to get to the project website.

But all of our information, the work, the analysis we have done to date in phase one is there.

Um information about the upcoming meetings are there.

Uh this webinar that we're recording tonight will be posted there.

Uh, the virtual open house survey is there.

If if you really want to get into it tonight, click on that right there where it says click here to explore our virtual open house.

Uh, and all that all of our materials that we're preparing over the really over the next year will be posted there.

The the only other item if if if social media website, um regular media, uh if that is not enough, feel free to reach out to me again, planning at syr.gov.

Um, happy to talk about how you can be involved.

Again, we're we're we're hosting meetings, we want people's input.

Um that that's the that's the whole thing.

The the the folks that you see at the top of the screen here um cannot develop this this work and this plan without your input.

And and that's not what we're trying to do, and that's not gonna be a successful plan.

So we want to hear from you.

Um, and and perhaps I'll end there.

Okay.

Um that's the last question, although we're happy to field more if there are more, but if if not, um then I think we can probably wrap this up.

Great.

We appreciate your time.

Um there are going to be a variety of opportunities, as Pete mentioned, not only over the next um you know, three weeks, but then again, uh towards the end of uh the summer, beginning of autumn, uh, we're gonna have another round.

So we're interested in your input.

Check out the project website, check out city social media uh for regular updates there.

Reach out to me at planning at syr.gov if you want to reach out to me directly about ideas or perhaps even just chat about the project.

Um, and thank you again for your time tonight and look forward to to sharing more.