Le Roy is open to anything at this stage regarding waterfront and downtown revitalization, Mayor Greg Rogers said at a strategic planning meeting on Wednesday.
Rogers opened the meeting, explaining that Le Roy received a grant for planning the revitalization of Main Street and the waterfront. He said they put together a planning committee for this.
“We’re just trying to make Le Roy better than what it is now and it’s pretty darn good now,” Rogers said.
John Steinmetz, a member of the committee, said the biggest challenge is that there are many ideas, but that they still want more. He said they are in the very beginning planning stages.
“We’ve been at this about a month,” Steinmetz said. “We were awarded the grant well over a year ago, but it took about a year to get the contract from the state. Now it’s officially a go.”
Residents at the meeting expressed their concerns about always having a plan for Le Roy, but never following through. Steinmetz said he thinks there hasn’t been enough momentum for the previous plans to follow through.
“Le Roy has done a lot of planning,” Steinmetz said. “The problem is, it’s not in one place. This grant is a way to say, ‘Are these ideas still relevant? What are the new ideas the community has?' and 'Let’s put them all in one document.’ ”
Steinmetz encouraged residents to think big and small when generating ideas.
“The most successful communities make sure the buildings designed can be reused,” Steinmetz said.
During the meeting, attendees rated pictures from other local communities, in order to give the committee an idea of what the public wants to see, regarding landscaping, residential development and mixed-use development.
Attendees were then put into three groups to brainstorm ideas they had for Le Roy, regarding specific parts of town.
Sandy Brady, a Le Roy resident, said there should be a bike path.
“We missed out when we did some work on Main Street,” Brady said. “We didn’t leave a bike path. Wherever you go these days, there’s a bike path.”
Brady said that bikes are everywhere nowadays and Le Roy does not have enough bike paths.
“It’s a different time now,” Brady said. “It’s many years later and we feel differently about bikes."
Committee Member Molly Gaudioso said this meeting was essential for them to hear what is important to the community.
“We want to know what ideas are out there,” Gaudioso said. “Of the ideas are already in plans, we want to know what ideas still make sense. It’s our job now to take this and make some sense out of it and put it into the plans.”
Steinmetz said the next meeting will be held toward year's end or the beginning of 2018.
