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12-20-2007 By JIM AUSTIN Editor They approached the village with "fresh eyes," and their ideas ranged from two parking garages to new residential neighborhoods on the east side of Brooklyn Avenue and near the Clark Sports Center. "Some of our ideas may seem obvious; others may be a shock," said student Paul Monson, who narrated the presentation. Professor Philip Bess has been bringing Notre Dame students to Cooperstown for years because it is an exemplary model of small town design. Over the years, he said, he had come to believe it might be a good place for his students' to focus their attention on. Bess and the students spent eight days studying the village in September, and have used their time since then developing ideas to address some of the pressures that Cooperstown and Otsego County are facing. In talking with people, the students found the most commonly identified threats to Cooperstown include: - the loss of its historic character; - traffic congestion and inadequate parking; - declining retail diversity and permanent residential population, and a shortage of housing for hospital employees and the middle class generally; and - the village's limited taxing authority and consequent inability to raise revenue for needed public works project. To those three, the students also added the absence of housing and retail opportunities within Cooperstown itself, seasonal and daily populations generated by tourism and Bassett Hospital, and a lack of coherent zoning in the county. Those additional impacts will worsen the other threats, and continue to generate the sprawl development occurring beyond the edges of the village that threatens Cooperstown's historic character, and consumes its historic natural and agricultural landscape. The problems and solutions must be looked holistically, Monson said. For example, he said, Cooperstown's parking and retail problems are related to its housing shortage. Cooperstown, with the Hall of Fame, Bassett Hospital and the Otsego County offices, is a regional economic power and must come to recognize and think of itself that way, the students believe. They provided both shortand long-term proposals for the village. Among the short-term ideas are: - re-densify Cooperstown historic center; - improve and beautify the north and south entrances to the village; - create residential housing on the west side of the village; - build parking garages downtown and at Bassett Hospital; - create a mixed-use neighborhood on the east side of Brooklyn Avenue; - use constructed wetlands to treat wastewater; and - adopt a new zoning ordinance for the village. "Whatever community and village government consensus may grow around these ideas and we are not presuming such a consensus is inevitable the ideas themselves are not realizable apart from the involvement of the major patrons and private institutions of the village of Cooperstown," Bess wrote in a letter to the board of trustees. Following the presentation, Village Historian Hugh Mac- Dougall commended the students for their forward-looking vision within the historic framework of the village. Trustee Paul Kuhn described the student's work as a "wonderful gift" to the village. "Your expertise and fresh set of eyes looking at our village will carry us into the future," Kuhn said. "We've been through change in Cooperstown. We've been through change from the outside. Now we have a chance to manage change from inside." Mayor Carol Waller said this week she wants to form a 2025 Committee to review the students' proposal and begin considering plans for the future of Cooperstown. For a complete look at the proposals, the text and slides from the presentation may be accessed at the students' site: www.ndcooperstown.typepad.com/. A link to the site can be found on the village's website: cooperstownny.org. |
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