Built Environment

OBJECTIVE 1
Invest more funding into public works and into downtown revitalization projects
Action Items
  • Increase capacity of electrical grid network with upgrades and prepare for higher need
  • Prioritize the assessment, repair, and replacement of flood control structures Resilience lens: urgency is increasing due to changing weather patterns
  • Ensure all communities have wastewater treatment to lay the foundation for healthy communities and economic development. Equity lens: ensure low-resource communities are not neglected in this process
  • Prioritize applications for DRI & NY Forward
  • Expand brownfield redevelopment and educate communities to benefits
OBJECTIVE 2
Workforce lens: Expand infrastructure workforce
Action Items
  • ​Increase availability of CDL trainings to support DPWs in workforce recruitment. ​
  • Provide regional management training specifically for intermediate supervisor positions to teach leadership skills, team building, and effective management of people
  • Increase counties’ ability to compete for workforce by offering higher salary and benefits
OBJECTIVE 3
Invest in all modes of transportation and expand access to public transit
Action Items
  • Workforce lens: create a public transit study to determine potential workforce impact of a more flexible, on-demand availability of transportation across the region. Equity lens: ensure service to underserved areas with low-income populations and service to the aging
  • Support pilot projects of on-demand service
  • Study the impact of loss of commercial service to the Jamestown airport, and make long-term plans to restore that service and expand runway
  • Resilience lens: assist municipalities with installing electric vehicle charging stations and utilizing NYS EV rebates.
OBJECTIVE 4
Improve housing quality and availability at all income levels
Create new housing developments in areas with low supply or high employment
  • Conduct housing studies across region to prepare for attracting developer investment Equity lens: ensure the studies take into account needs of the aging, of low-income workers, of housing needs for service industry workers, and that development is clustered near availability of public transit
  • Workforce lens: Work with new employers to predict future jobs and housing needs
  • Identify housing needs for new employees
  • Incentivize renovation of downtown district office spaces into residential spaces
  • Workforce lens: Incentivize entry into homebuilding profession
  • Resilience lens: prioritize environmental factors in siting housing, including impact of prevailing winds, water management, orientation for potential solar rooftops, planting of trees and cooling elements, for increases in heat waves and heavy rain events
OBJECTIVE 5
Expand equitable access to broadband
Action Items
Continue to expand broadband access to the final remaining pockets where it is inaccessible. Equity lens: broadband is essential for basic economic functioning regardless of population density or income.
OBJECTIVE 6
Support transition to renewable energy
Action Items
  • Provide information and assistance to communities in accessing NYS rebates for EV fleets and charging stations, and geothermal systems. Equity lens: assist low-income households with replacement of conventional high-energy-use vehicles and appliances
  • Resilience lens: assist communities with planning positively for renewable energy development with smart growth principles and farmland protection
  • Resilience lens: support cooperative small-scale models of energy generation
SOUTHERN TIER WEST
​Center for Regional Excellence
4039 Route 219, Suite 200
Salamanca, NY 14779

716-945-5301  
​Fax 716-945-5550

STW"s mission is to help coordinate and enhance planning and development activities in Allegany, Cattaraugus, and Chautauqua Counties so as to promote social, physical, and economic development in these counties. Southern Tier West seeks to improve the quality of life for the region's people and assure that the "people of the Southern Tier West region have access to adequate occupational, educational, and recreational opportunities; environment; health care services; housing; public safety; and transportation.
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