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Orange County holds public hearing on proposed 2025 comprehensive plan update, including new open-space chapter
Summary
The Orange County Legislature held a public hearing June 23 on a proposed 2025 update to the county comprehensive plan that adds a new open-space supplemental chapter replacing the 2004 open-space plan and identifies priority projects for future grant applications. No members of the public spoke at the hearing.
The Orange County Legislature held a public hearing Monday on the proposed adoption of the 2025 update to the Orange County comprehensive plan, including a new open-space supplemental chapter that would replace the county’s 2004 open-space plan.
The hearing, held June 23 at the Orange County Government Center in Goshen, provided an overview of the update and the supplemental open-space chapter, which adds a forestry sector and identifies priority projects to support future grant applications. The legislature received the full environmental assessment form and the draft documents are available on the Department of Planning’s website, Planning Commissioner Alan Sorensen told the panel.
Commissioner Alan Sorensen summarized the update and the supplemental open-space chapter, saying the plan contains eight supplemental chapters and that the 2025 open-space chapter will replace the county’s 2004 open-space plan. “We have identified priority projects to help implement the open space plan,” Sorensen said, noting the list is intended to improve alignment with future funding opportunities.
Sorensen described the open-space chapter’s organization: each sector includes background on existing conditions, overarching goals, recommendations, objectives and actions. The chapter adds a forestry sector and addresses agriculture and farmland protection, biodiversity and natural resources, the built environment (including tree-planting initiatives and small pocket parks in cities), historic and cultural resources, recreation (including recommendations for a new county park at Camp LaGuardia), and water-resources protection.
The clerk read the published public-notice for the hearing, which indicated the meeting time and listed local newspapers where the notice appeared. The legislature was also provided the full environmental assessment form for the proposal, Sorensen said.
No members of the public had signed up to speak; the presiding official declared the public hearing closed after asking if there were any speakers.
The Legislature’s action at the meeting was procedural: it opened and closed the public hearing and received the documents. No vote to adopt the plan was taken at the June 23 hearing, and no formal directions to staff were recorded during the session.
The draft comprehensive plan and the supplemental open-space chapter remain available for review on the Department of Planning’s website for Orange County.
