Economic Preparedness and Resiliency

As dis­cussed in Chap­ter 2: Har­mo­ny with Nature, a vari­ety of cli­mate change impacts have been observed and record­ed in New York State. Extreme storms have the poten­tial to become more fre­quent and intense. Hur­ri­cane Floyd (1999), Hur­ri­cane Irene (2011) and Hur­ri­cane Sandy (2012) result­ed in cost­ly dam­age across New Cas­tle. A Resilient Econ­o­my enables a com­mu­ni­ty to with­stand and recov­er from unex­pect­ed emer­gen­cies and nat­ur­al dis­as­ters. The Town of New Cas­tle has estab­lished an Emergency/​Disaster Oper­at­ing Pro­ce­dures Emer­gency Plan which sets forth a coor­di­nat­ed, thor­ough and appro­pri­ate response to an emer­gency. This Plan sets forth a goal to ensure eco­nom­ic pre­pared­ness is includ­ed in emer­gency plan­ning in New Cas­tle (see Chap­ter 4: Healthy Community).

While it remains vital­ly impor­tant to main­tain the Town’s bucol­ic char­ac­ter, New Cas­tle res­i­dents desire thriv­ing and vibrant com­mer­cial areas where busi­ness­es are well sup­port­ed and pro­vide a vari­ety of goods and ser­vices. This chap­ter sets forth goals that will sup­ple­ment those estab­lished in Chap­ter 1: Liv­able Built Envi­ron­ment, which pro­mote the devel­op­ment of addi­tion­al and var­ied hous­ing in the ham­lets, with an added focus on the enhance­ment of the eco­nom­ic poten­tial of cur­rent and future busi­ness­es in each of the Town’s com­mer­cial areas. Goals to revi­tal­ize ham­let land­scapes to cater to pedes­tri­ans and pro­mote sus­tain­able, mixed-use devel­op­ment are estab­lished for the pur­pose of pro­vid­ing phys­i­cal capac­i­ty for healthy local busi­ness­es and a wel­com­ing atmos­phere for patrons.

Rede­vel­op­ment stud­ies for the Chap­paqua and Mill­wood ham­lets have begun. When com­plete these stud­ies will set forth vary­ing land use sce­nar­ios that cater to res­i­dents’ visions for both ham­lets and help to accom­plish the goals estab­lished in this Plan. The stud­ies sug­gest infill devel­op­ment on prop­er­ties that are pub­li­cal­ly owned or under­uti­lized as well as mea­sures to enhance acces­si­bil­i­ty, walk­a­bil­i­ty and aes­thet­ics in the com­mer­cial areas. These stud­ies will be revis­it­ed fol­low­ing the adop­tion of this Com­pre­hen­sive Plan.