The short meeting was held at the North Elba Town Hall and lasted just 12 minutes. In addition to the dozen members who sit on the two local boards, seven residents were in attendance, as well as others who joined in online. Next month, the boards are slated to vote on approval of the plan, which was completed last year and covers more than 100 pages. It is available for viewing on the town and village websites at tinyurl.com/y65snu3n.

On Thursday, Jan. 15, the joint Land Use Code Committee is slated to hold a public information session at 5:30 p.m. about a separate local law to review the proposed amendments to the land use code. More information on that — including the full proposed local law, an executive summary and information on ways to attend — are available at tinyurl.com/3at365tn.

Developing comprehensive plans is a normal process municipalities pursue to find a path to follow in an effort to help make life easier for residents and visitors alike. The plans are geared toward taking on challenges that communities face and are generally updated every five to 10 years, with Lake Placid and North Elba last going through the process in 2014.

It took between 18 months and two years to put together the comprehensive plan and the effort included input from residents, nearly 100 community volunteers, a steering committee, organizations including the Regional Office of Sustainable Tourism (ROOST), businesses and a consulting firm — SE Group — based in Vermont.

North Elba Supervisor Rick Preston said approximately 80 percent of the funding for the consultant group’s work came from grant money, which was received from the state Department of State in 2023.

Dean Dietrich was the lone resident attending in person who spoke at the meeting.

“It was community-driven. One positive thing is there still are a lot of people who care about this community,” Dietrich said. “When I first came here in the 80s, we were worried about the character of the town and what the town looked like. We were very concerned about scale. We were very concerned about open space. I think the character of the town is now determined by the people that are in the town.

“If you look at this comprehensive plan, it’s about art, it’s about education and child care, it’s about affordable housing and so that’s going to change the look of the town a little bit,” he said. “I see this as a continuum of what’s happened in the past, while setting up some challenges for the future.”

Lake Placid resident Stephanie Pianka was involved in the process through a steering committee and spoke online at the meeting.

“I just want to say this was a very fair and open process and I think there was a very fair and balanced discussion to the needs of the community and maintaining a community that’s really accessible and available, where it benefits all different types of individuals in the community,” she said. “I’m proud to have been a part of that committee. I think the work is well done, even though it took us a couple years.”

“Anything worth doing is worth doing right, so thank you for sticking with it for two years,” replied Village Mayor Art Devlin in thanking Prianka for her efforts.

Preston said a major goal of comprehensive plans is to obtain funding, and in the case of the town and the village, working together is a natural fit.

“More and more the town and the village are working toward a common cause and a lot of it is in that comprehensive plan,” Preston said. “We use comprehensive plans to help to guide us, guardrails along the road. We use a comprehensive plan in grants, seeking money from the state, showing this is our goal. More of this is just showing we have a direction. Everybody needs a direction.”

Preston views infrastructure, industry and tourism as important aspects of the plan and added that housing is a key component as well.

“The comprehensive plan identifies a few different areas that we could go in,” Preston said. “To sum it, why did you need this huge plan? The name says it all; it’s comprehensive. It involves more than just identifying. It has goals, it has an end product to it.”

“A comprehensive plan helps when you’re looking to get funding for things,” Village Trustee Katie Brennan said. “You have something that’s objective to go back to and say the community really values this, and it makes sure that people understand these are fundamental needs. It helps to have everybody aligned. It helps to provide a process to get input from the community.”

Brennan added that a strong effort was involved in developing the plan and said she’s grateful for the support in its creation.

“We really tried to do a big push,” she said. “We had survey responses from a ton of community members — on social media, ROOST pushed them out on their distribution lists, they were put out on town and village websites and packets with the links went home to parents in folders from schools.”

“The community input has been wonderful. People have been constructive and really thoughtful,” Brennan said. “You can see in responses people trying to weigh up the challenges and the things as a community that we have to balance — what our strengths are, what we can make even better, and also areas we really have to work on.”