Politics & Government

Summit Seeks Public Input on Downtown Plan

Summit hosts a Town Hall meeting Wednesday to discuss potential plans for its downtown.

Summit is in the early stages of a creating a comprehensive planning study of its downtown and adjacent neighborhoods in an effort to promote economic development, develop effective strategies for both business owners and residents, and to uncover and address even the most minor of details.

The first step is asking for your help.

Summit is hosting a Town Meeting hosted by Mayor Ellen Dickson and members of the Planning Board Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. at City Hall and is inviting residents, and business and property owners to help provide input on the kind of downtown Summit they'd like to see. 

City Administrator Chris Cotter said the plan is expected to be completed and presented to the Planning Board in the fall. When finished, the plan should provide bullet point ideas for improvements and changes to make the downtown better.

"There have been been downtown master plans in the past; this is an opportunity to look at our downtown even more comprehensively," he said. "There's an appreciation from the city as well as the Planning Board to continue to make the downtown as exciting as possible with as much participation as possible.

"All of it is meant to be reviewed in a very public way."

Cotter said the plan will look at the downtown proper as well as the neighborhoods that are immediately adjacent to the downtown, with a focus on how they impact each other.

Preliminary ideas that will be presented at Wednesday's meeting might be as simple as installing improved directional signage for visitors coming to Summit and erecting gateways to serve as entrances to the downtown.

Larger recommendations might revolve around finding the right mix between residential living and downtown businesses and developing a strategy to see that the two can continue to coexist.

"This is kind of an initial stage where the planning group is seeking input," Cotter said. "It's the first public meeting to be able to get some input from all areas of the community to better understand what residents, business owners, and property owners would like to see."

 The meeting will also be televised by Hometowne TV.

Find out what's happening in Summitwith free, real-time updates from Patch.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here