To provide the best planning services available in as concise, detailed, economical and legally supportable a manner as possible using up to date techniques and practices.  This basic philosophy can be spelled out as follows as it applies to our municipal practice:

·       Good planning and zoning regulations should use state of the art controls to be adopted by the municipality, if they do not already exist on a county, state, or federal level.  Municipalities should not rely solely on the SEQRA environmental review process to resolve all environmental, planning, or aesthetic concerns.  Our office has developed special regulations in regard to communication towers, self-storage facilities, ridge preservation controls, signage, setbacks on major roads, airport flight paths, architectural review, etc. whose results cannot be replaced by a SEQRA review.

·       Project analysis should be performed as efficiently as possible with all questions raised during the initial reviews.  The applicant should be made aware of all known concerns.  As the review proceeds, new issues may arise due to plan changes and public hearing concerns, but the process should not be extended unnecessarily by the planner. 

·       The elected municipal boards are responsible for adopting local regulations and the planning and zoning boards administer these regulations.  However, keeping the plan and regulations up to date is an ongoing process, and is helped by good communication among all boards.  The planner can be an appropriate person to help facilitate such communication among boards, particularly where existing regulations call for change. 

·       Not all new concepts apply equally to all situations of all communities.  The planner should recommend new initiatives only where they would be appropriate to a given situation.

·       Planners should be proactive with a municipality in their recommendations, but those recommendations should be made at the appropriate time and must not embarrass the board.  Planners are there to assist a board in doing the best possible job, not to draw attention to themselves.

·       SEQRA should be addressed early in the planning process.  The planner must make certain the time frames and issues are properly covered to protect the planning board and community.

·       The planner must understand the community’s goals and work with the community to achieve those goals.  In a master plan process it is the planner’s role to help a community refine its goals, to develop a realistic plan, then effectuate its recommendations with practical, unambiguous zoning amendments tailored to the community’s specific needs.