Village to Use Survey to Guide its Planning

In advance of developing a new master plan to guide Port Jefferson Village in how it handles issues such as code changes and downtown development in the future, the Comprehensive Planning Advisory Committee sent out a survey to residents to rate their satisfaction with the town and ask what issues were most important to them.

Dropping the survey.

The survey dropped in the mail in February with a letter to residents asking their help in updating the plan for the Village that had been formulated back in 1965. Responses were calculated over the next few months by committee members.

According to Mike Francis who helped develop the survey and is on the committee, a few thousand letters were sent out. They provided self addressed postage paid reply cards to make returning the surveys easier.

A surprising response rate.

According to Francis, the response rate was about 15 to 18 percent. At first he didn't think they received a very good response at all until committee members and representatives from Cameron Engineering and Associates said that it was a higher rate of return than usual. (Cameron is an engineering company assisting Port Jefferson in developing future plans for the town and the ones who requested the survey.)

In October, the committee finished a report of the data. The survey results were broken down into three categories, including rating the Village as it exists now, what the Village should encourage in the future and what are the most important issues facing Port Jefferson over the next ten years.

Rating the Village now.

In the matter of rating the Village as it is now, toping the list was high satisfaction with public amenities such as parks and recreation facilities. Second was Port Jefferson as a place to live overall and third was the public water system. Public safety and fire protection were also in the top ten.

Quality of the schools, cultural opportunities and traffic control were in the middle of the list as were recycling and preserving historic structures and sites.

Condition of the roads and appearance of the uptown area were at the very bottom of the list. Taxes and current land use patterns also were at the lower end of people's satisfactory ratings.

There were a total of 28 items in the category.

What the Village should be encouraging.

The second category asked what the Village authorities should be encouraging right now. At the top of the list: arts and theater. Second was retail business and next came outdoor athletics. Development of the uptown area and fishing and tourism were in the top ten.

Moderate income housing ranked in the middle of the list. Village run garbage collection and additional cell phone service was somewhere in the middle as well.

People thought that encouraging the buidling of two and three family dwellings, low-income housing and apartment complexes of four or more units were not at all advisable.

There were 34 items listed in this category.

The most important issues over the next 10 years.

The next category was what people thought were the most important issues facing Port Jefferson in the next ten years. Controlling taxes came in tops just over the quality of the schools and infrastructure.

Soil and groundwater contamination was in the top ten as was over development and vandalism, litter and graffiti (one category). Sidewalks and street lighting, noise and jobs for young people were in the middle of the pack.

At the bottom were ferry operations, the country club and day care, which came in last on the list.

This category had 27 items in total.

Moving forward to a plan.

The results will be discussed and debated over the next few months but Francis said that what the committee came up with is a "good, broad aspect of what villagers feel about the Village."

The Comprehensive Planning Advisory Committee meets every Wednesday at Village Hall as they develop their reccomendations. They will use the report to guide them in their presentation to the public sometime in early 2011.