The Otsego County planning board and a steering committee made up of local agency officials have arranged a planning summit designed to identify various issues facing the county and set in motion the development of a county master plan.

Otsego County planning director Terry Bliss said the summit - scheduled for Jan. 30 at the Morris Conference Center in Oneonta from 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. - is designed to bring together representatives from local governments, county governments, county-interested agencies and state organizations.

"It's mostly for the benefit of local governments, mayors and supervisors, planning board chairmen," Bliss said. "We want to bring to that room representatives of agencies who are instrumental in trying to plan the future development and preservation of the county."

In invitations sent out to Otsego County municipal leaders and state agencies, the summit's purpose was listed as having three main parts. The first part is to "identify the agencies involved in community planning, development and/or conservation in Otsego County." The second part is to "establish a listing of strengths and challenges in the county regarding community planning and development." The third element of the summit's purpose is to "identify those agencies that should work together to address our stated challenges."

He said some of the issues currently facing the county include development along route 28 and the route 20 corridor, issues of preserving the rural character of the area, the dynamics of the local housing market and environmental impacts development is having on the region.

Bliss said many resource agencies available are not utilized by local governments and agencies as effectively as they could be.

"Lots of times these resource agencies are forgotten or not used the way they should be," Bliss said.

Teresa Winchester, executive director of Otsego County Conservation Association and a member of the steering committee which helped plan the event, said a summit like this was "long overdue."

"This is an extremely positive initiative for the county and I commend Terry Bliss for undertaking such a thing," she said "I think it will be a good opportunity for decision-makers in the county to get to know each other better and the needs of their particular towns or villages. We have a lot in common and if we pull together and think of what's best for the county we'll all be better off. We are particularly interested in land use and we hope to see some results that will bring positive long-term impacts."

Lynn Bass, county economic developer and a member of the steering committee, said she thinks the summit will provide agencies with a better overview of county issues.

"I think it will just give us a better view of what the towns are in need of and what's important to them," she said.

Bliss agreed that the summit was a precursor to the development of a master plan for the county and that various agencies' grand scope for the county would be discussed at the summit.

"It's definitely moving in that direction," he said. He said the development of a master plan was a collaborative effort and is implemented to help guide decision-making at the level of the county planning board and possibly the county legislative body. "It's a process which is not written by one person or one department but only by a collaboration of county resources."

Bliss said it was also useful to have master plans when applying for competitive grants.

A comprehensive plan is a document that identifies the vision, goals, policies, and strategies to guide growth and development over the next 10 to 15 years.

The summit is not open to the public and attendance is by invitation only, Bliss said.

Bliss said two department interns from SUCO - Marcus Klem and Fiona Carbin - would be assisting the planning department at the event and would be putting together a booklet containing information about each resource agency, their jurisdictions and so on.