By RICK MILLER
Olean Star
OLEAN — The Olean Common Council on Tuesday approved a new Comprehensive Development Plan designed to guide future growth in the city through 2045.
The 20-year comprehensive plan was developed over 1 ½ years by a Task Force Committee, the Community Development Department and a Buffalo consultant, E&S Companies.
Mayor Bill Aiello said the city’s 2005 Comprehensive Development “initiated Olean’s Renaissance. “This new birth of Olean is visible throughout the City.”
In a letter accompanying the comprehensive plan, Aiello said the business district has been enhanced with a new traffic pattern, renovated historic buildings and inviting gardens and planters on North Union Street. He also cited development of former brownfields, expanded recreation trails and enhanced city parks.
“The new Comprehensive Development Plan will move this revitalization forward with an end result that will make Olean a thriving commercial hub that nurtures entrepreneurs and develops a trained workforce,” the mayor wrote. “Ultimately, the goal of this plan is to reverse our downward population trend and make Olean the pride of the Southern Tier.”
Aiello thanked Community Development director Keri Kerper for her work on the plan. “This is our road map for the next 20 years.”
Aldermen also approved a resolution to allow the Olean Historical and Preservation Society to apply for a historic marker for the Teddy Roosevelt and Frank Higgins oak tree in Lincoln Park.
The society has asked the city to save part of the trunk of the tree, part of which is reported to be in danger of falling due to rot, and to permit a memorial to be carved from the bottom 10 feet of the historic tree planted by Roosevelt and Higgins, the only Olean resident to be elected governor of New York, in 1906.
Alderman Vernon Robinson Jr., I-Ward 6, said if the tree is more decayed than is apparent from the ground, it may have to be taken all the way down to the ground. He suggested saving some logs from the tree that are not decayed for wood for memorial benches.
A memorial could be carved from some of the wood as well and stored in the historical society’s nearby Carriage House.
Council President John Crawford, D-Ward 5, said it was apparent that the aldermen favored the Olean Historical and Preservation Society’s plan for a memorial if the tree’s base was solid wood and not rotted.
The council will vote on whether to fully remove the tree in two weeks.
National Grid, which has trimmed the historic tree in the past, has agreed to take the tree down to a preferred height, but cautioned the lower part of the tree may be decayed.
During the regular meeting Tuesday night, Robinson also asked the mayor to express concern to the state Department of Transportation of the dangerous situation posed by a series of potholes along Interstate 86 between Olean and Allegany.
Robinson said motorists driving between Exits 26 and 26 are forced to shift into the left lane when they co0me upon the large potholes. “It’s like a roller coaster going over those holes. It’s bad.”
Robinson also pointed out that some ADA sidewalk ramps at city intersections are not being shoveled by residents — who have shoveled in front of their homes. One person in a wheelchair got stuck o0n one of the ramps last week, he said.
During the public comment section of the regular meeting, an environmental activist, Glen Wahl of Little Valley, complained that the city was not acting fast enough to address the problem of sewage overflows into the Allegheny River. He has addressed the council over the problem several times in the past year.
This problem “is still nowhere near being put on the front burner,” Wahl said. The mayor is “not a driving force” on solving the problem, he said. “He’s in the passenger’s seat and the car is in park.”
Wahl also asked what the plans are to separate roof drains and street catch basins from sanitary sewers? What about the request for proposals to study the problem and funding to correct it?
Olean aldermen approved a 20-year Comprehensive Development Plan Tuesday that is designed to guide future development.
