Introduction
The Tompkins County Planning Department created this website to assist interested municipal governments, businesses, non-profit groups, and local citizens in finding planning tools to help them achieve the goals set forth in the Vital Communities Development and Preservation Principles.
The Vital Communities Principles were developed through extensive community involvement and adopted as an interim measure by the Tompkins County Legislature in June, 2002. For more information, please visit the Vital Communities Website.
If residents of Tompkins County discover an interesting tool that could
potentially be used in their communities, the staff of the Tompkins
County Planning Department urge you to contact
us to find out more about the tool and its applicability in our
area. Another place to go for more information is the resources
page on this website.
Options for Searching the Toolbox
Disclaimer
We are sure this Toolbox does not include all of the existing planning tools, and we welcome suggestions or critiques of tools that are, or should be, included here.
Some of the tools are routinely used and well understood; however,
others are just starting to be used or are not known to have been used
in New York State. The Tompkins County Planning Department does not
necessarily recommend all of these tools for application in all communities.
Some tools work well in certain situations, but if applied in an inappropriate
area, may not work well at all. Each community must assess its own assets,
strengths, weaknesses, and threats and identify what community members
value and hope to achieve in the future. 