Westchester intern presents story map showing grants funded much of borough’s 2016 plan work

Mikey Cummins, an intern with the borough and a senior at Westchester University, told the Westchester Borough Planning Commission on Sept. 23 that her review of the borough’s 2016 comprehensive plan shows most completed projects relied heavily on outside grants. “Adding the completed and partially completed together, that’s 40% of the completed actions,” Cummins said, summarizing the status categories she used. She demonstrated a publicly accessible ArcGIS Online story map that catalogs recommended actions, status (completed, partially completed, not started), locations and funding sources.

The story map matters for the commission’s upcoming comprehensive-plan update because it provides a data-driven inventory staff and commissioners can use to prioritize projects and target grant applications. “We did a great job of fundraising through grants,” Planning Commission member Jim Cherry said after the presentation, noting many projects required borough matching funds and that the map will help the commission prepare for the update.

Cummins said she categorized 119 recommended actions from the 2016 plan (by her count) into three status buckets and mapped the actions by ward and project cost and funding source. She reported about 59% of actions were “not started,” 24% were “fully completed” and 16% partially completed; she called the combined 40% completion rate “outstanding for a municipality.” The presentation highlighted more than 20 stormwater-improvement projects since 2016, including rain gardens, the Taylor Run stream restoration and public-works best management practices, and called continued stormwater upgrades an ongoing priority.

Cummins also broke out funding sources on the map and on an associated dashboard. She told commissioners that grants constituted the largest funding share and that viewers can click any project to see award amounts and which grants were used. In the meeting she said Chester County “approximately received about $102,000,000; the borough received about 2,” and that the dashboard shows grant funding as the top source for implemented projects. Cherry said staff would work to post the story map link on the borough website once an IT staff member reviews it.

Commissioners asked about data access and usability. Cummins said the AGOL items include tables that can be downloaded as source data for filtering and sorting; she agreed to share access instructions and the underlying data set with commission members. Aaron Fluke (director, as stated in the meeting) and other members urged commissioners to use the map to “rack and stack” unfinished work so the next plan can prioritize applications to recurring grant programs and stagger timing of grant requests.

No formal action or vote was taken; commissioners directed staff to make the map available to the public and to use the inventory as a starting point for the comprehensive-plan update.

Commissioners praised the presentation as a tool to inform grant strategy and the upcoming plan update, and asked staff to provide the map link and downloadable data before the next voting session so members can review and note priorities.