Unplanned growth continues to pose one of the biggest threats to the Cooperstown area, according to a summary of public input from the generic environmental impact statement (GEIS) being completed for the village and towns of Otsego and Middlefield.

The report was released by municipal officials and GEIS consultant Nan Stolzenberg Monday morning and details responses from numerous 'scoping' activities since the process began last year. It will be the subject of public hearing later this month.

The term scoping refers to involving the public in an effort to 'scope out issues' and is done to help focus the study on topics that require additional understanding and analysis.

According to Stolzenberg, scoping helps reveal strengths and weaknesses of an area and helps to point planners in the direction of issues that need to be studied.

"We have tried to develop public input opportunities to get to as many folks in the community as possible," she said. "I think we have attempted to do a lot of things."

Stolzenberg also discussed briefly the visual preferences survey used in January to help define the terms "rural character" and "small town nature" which kept cropping up in public input sessions.

The public was shown and asked to rate positively or negatively, a series of slides depicting a range of environments from vacant, wooded land to commercial establishments surrounded by undeveloped farmland. Or another series illustrating a range from a small town Main Street with two and three story buildings of similar architecture to a multi-lane highway with commercial developments on each side.

Defining the terms was important to the process to make sure everyone was talking about the same thing, she said. "The slides provide a baseline on which to judge environmental impact."

If, during the analysis, she and her staff come across a scenario or action that is going to result in a situation resembling a negatively rated slide, they know the public would identify it as a negative environmental impact.

From the public input, Stolzenberg and her associates have developed a framework for the GEIS which divides it into four major sections.

They include: current conditions in the Cooperstown area, development in the area, the impacts and causes of development, and strategies and alternatives that could address impacts.

Each of the broad areas is broken down further into a series of questions which, when answered, will provide insight into the growth capacity of the area, according to Stolzenberg.

The 47-page report will be the subject of a public hearing later this month when area residents will have a chance to review the compilation and offer suggestions for any issues which may have been overlooked.

The public comment period will remain open until the end of May when Stolzenberg and her staff will begin to formulate the answers to the questions.

"The next step will be to lay it all out on the table and start with the first question and go to the data and try to figure out what's going on," she said.

If there are no drastic changes following the public comment period, the consultant said she believes it may be possible to complete the GEIS by this fall. A traffic study remains to be done, but planners are waiting until the summer's peak traffic conditions.

Stolzenberg said she is also awaiting the relase of more data from the 2000 census. That information is expected to be released through the remainder of the year and may be handled in a supplement to the GEIS.

When completed, the GEIS will be a tool municipalities may use when making planning decisions and Stolzenberg thinks it will put the Cooperstown area "light years ahead of most communities. It's akin to what major cities have at their disposal. You will have terrific information at hand that folks can use."

Mayor Wendell Tripp said that "for this area it is a major step forward."

Town of Otsego Supervisor Bill Gates said he believes the GEIS and the hard data it contains on dozens of subjects will be "fairly valuable" to his town which is currently reviewing its comprehensive plan.

Copies of the report are available at village and town offices and at the village library. The report may also be accessed on Stolzenberg's website www.planningbetterplaces.com.

The public hearing will be held on Wednesday, May 23, at 10 a.m. in the meeting room of the village office building.