About
Welcome to the Village of Hamburg Comprehensive Plan Website!
What is a Comprehensive Plan?
A comprehensive plan is an official, long-range 'blueprint' for a municipality's future created by its local government. Comprehensive plans detail the community’s vision for the future, including development, land use, and community priorities. A comprehensive plan also provides strategies for addressing housing needs, infrastructure improvements, improvements of the Village’s various neighborhoods, the needs for all modes of transportation, climate resiliency, preserving community character while improving placemaking, and improving parks and recreation within the Village.
A well-crafted comprehensive plan should include topical items, supporting maps, and other graphics. It should also include an executive summary, a vision statement, goals and objectives, findings and recommendations, an implementation matrix, sustainability elements, and a climate vulnerability assessment.
Why does the Village of Hamburg need a comprehensive plan update?
The Village of Hamburg’s most recent Comprehensive Plan was completed in 2012, following an earlier plan adopted in 2003. While these plans provided a strong framework for guiding growth and decision-making, conditions within the Village and the broader region have changed significantly over the past decade. Demographic trends, housing needs, economic conditions, transportation priorities, and infrastructure demands have evolved, and new issues, such as housing affordability and diversity, short-term rentals and lodging, sustainability, and climate resilience, now play a more prominent role in shaping the Village’s future.
An updated Comprehensive Plan will allow the Village to assess progress since 2012, revisit assumptions that may no longer reflect current conditions, and establish a clear, community-supported vision for the next 10–20 years. The updated plan will serve as a coordinated policy framework to guide land use and zoning decisions, infrastructure and transportation investments, housing strategies, and economic development efforts, while ensuring that future growth and reinvestment align with Hamburg’s character, quality of life, and long-term sustainability.
How is the Village paying for the comprehensive plan update?
The County of Erie awarded the Village of Hamburg partial funding to develop a Comprehensive Plan Update.
Who is responsible for creating this Comprehensive Plan update?
Ultimately, the Village is responsible for creating and passing a comprehensive plan. For these purposes, the Village has appointed a Steering Committee comprised of several engaged members from different sectors in the community. The Village also hired LaBella Associates to work as the Village's planning consultant. LaBella Associates was chosen based on a competitive request for proposals.
The role of the Steering Committee is to provide perspectives on the information gathered and feedback on draft documents, policies, and implementation actions. The Steering Committee will also help plan for and publicize public engagement events. Please visit the Steering Committee tab at the top for a full list of committee members.
Project Breakdown
The objective of this plan will be to conduct a comprehensive inventory and analysis of the Village of Hamburg, which will help identify actionable recommendations the Village of Hamburg can take to accomplish the community’s long-range vision for how they want their community to be 20 years from now.
This plan will accomplish this objective through the following tasks:
A comprehensive inventory and analysis of the existing conditions in the Village of Hamburg, focusing on the following areas:
Land Use & Zoning
Downtown & Economic Development
Housing & Neighborhoods
Open Spaces & Recreation
Natural & Cultural Resources
Transportation & Mobility
Infrastructure & Utilities
Civic Assets
An extensive public engagement plan that will help the Village of Hamburg understand current issues, gain information from the public, clarify its vision, goals, and priorities for the future, and inform recommendations and implementation strategies. Components of the public engagement plan include:
Conducting a public survey
Stakeholder interviews
Host and facilitate public workshops
The development of a community vision statement and goals, which will identify priorities for the Village of Hamburg and ensure that the Village of Hamburg takes the proper actions to ensure that the plan’s recommendations are implemented in a consistent and coordinated effort.
The identification of implementation strategies and recommended actions needed to achieve the goals of the Village of Hamburg. The implementation strategy will specify the relative priority, anticipated timeframe, order-of-magnitude costs, potential funding sources, and the entity or entities responsible for implementing each action.
