A Vision for Penfield
It can be easy to miss the forest for the trees, especially in a town that so loves its trees. And so, for all the time and effort that Preserve Penfield has spent pushing back on development projects that clash with our hopes for the town’s future (not to mention zoning laws, community needs, and the Comprehensive Plan), no clear picture has really been painted to share what those hopes actually look like.
It’s easy to say you want the town to be a better place without going into too much detail about what you mean by “better”. But to say “better” is to appeal to a listener’s sense of values. Just as the spectrum of personal values runs a wide gamut, the word “better” can mean so many things to so many people that it does very little to steer a group of people in any particular direction.
After all, that’s all a town is, in the grand scheme of things: a group of people sharing some space who work together to make that space more functional, prosperous, and fulfilling than any of them would be able to on their own. A town is a grand exercise in cooperation, and cooperation flourishes when those involved can find their shared values to use as a guide.
Preserve Penfield has come together around a set of shared values that we believe can be embraced by a majority of Penfield residents and business owners.
Community Character
Towns tend to take on an intangible set of qualities that color our perceptions of them. These perceptions sway our decisions about where to spend our time; to visit a town for an afternoon stroll or a meal out; to establish a home or business there. This abstract sense of a place is what we refer to when we say community character.
A town prospers when people want to buy homes and start businesses there. These are investments by ordinary people that enhance the town and enrich the people. Preserve Penfield supports building housing that enables residents to build equity. Homeownership has long been a cornerstone of the American Dream, and with the right development, it can be achievable at a range of densities and price points. We also support locally-owned businesses. Local businesses operate at local scales, spending more of their money with local producers and workers to keep capital circulating where we need it most: right here.
Penfield is home to historic and environmental resources that provide not only a unique sense of place, but an opportunity for the kind of development that distinguishes us from neighboring towns. Large scale national chains tend to treat these resources as obstacles to be worked around, but savvy, locally-focused development can make good use of the advantages these resources provide.
Our long history as an agricultural center makes Penfield well suited for the development of agribusiness to showcase locally grown products. Community mainstays like Schutt’s Apple Mill and Sunscape Farms demonstrate the sustained viability of this model, and newer businesses like the Oak & Apple Cidery are paving the way for future innovation.
Penfield also boasts an abundance of natural wetlands. By protecting and stewarding these spaces, we can not only reap the practical benefits (such as cleaner air and reduced flood risk), but also have the opportunity to become a destination for local tourists. Drawing visitors from neighboring towns will only serve to bolster local businesses and create a more positive perception of Penfield among would-be home buyers and entrepreneurs.
Community Voices
A functioning democratic system demands public participation. Stated more eloquently by John Adams, “Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right … and a desire to know.” Unfortunately, a great deal of what happens in Penfield’s town government does so with relatively little public scrutiny. For this reason, Preserve Penfield has made it a priority to educate residents on how to productively get involved in Town government and to inform the public about issues that may inspire involvement.
As part of this, we spend a fair amount of time just learning about how things work in the town and discussing among ourselves what we’ve learned. After all, we are simply a group of volunteers from a range of professional backgrounds.
Our vision is of a Penfield filled with actively engaged residents, where a vibrant marketplace of ideas assures that all civic decision-making truly represents the best interests of an informed public.
Useful Regulation
Laws can do a great deal to guide civic life, but those laws are what we make them to be. As humans, we make mistakes, and law is no exception. The beauty of democracy, though, is that we are empowered to take responsibility and correct our mistaken laws. What constitutes a mistake, though?
In considering how to separate the regulations we support from those that we do not, Preserve Penfield considers their utility. Within the town’s laws, emphasis is frequently placed on protecting the safety and wellbeing of residents, stewarding the land, and planning for present and future needs. These goals are the bedrock of our zoning regulations, and codes should be judged by how useful they are at furthering those goals.
Preserve Penfield supports the repeal of laws that are in conflict with the town’s goals, the clarification of those that are vague or confusing, and the addition of new ones to address open issues. We also advocate for the fair and consistent enforcement of useful regulations for all projects. It’s as simple as that.
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Having a vision can get everyone looking in the same direction, but real movement demands the hard work and dedication of an entire community. Our commitment is to make sure that our near-term activities always tie back to some tenet of our grander plan. If this prospective future speaks to your values as well, please consider staying in touch and feel free to join us as we put in the work.
