What it is, what it says, and what it means for active issues today.
Adopted March 2017. Amended once, in December 2022, on housing only. Last reviewed on this page: May 2026.
Under New York State Village Law §7-722, a Comprehensive Plan is the Village's official long-term planning document. It guides decisions about land use, infrastructure, housing, transportation, and the overall character of the community.
The statute makes one provision binding: all Village land-use regulations "must be in accordance with a comprehensive plan adopted pursuant to this section." That means zoning, subdivision rules, infrastructure standards, and major development decisions are all supposed to flow from, and remain consistent with, this single document.
If the Plan is out of date, the decisions built on it may be out of date too.
Penn Yan adopted its current Comprehensive Plan in March 2017, based on community workshops, surveys, and consultant analysis conducted in 2014-2016. It has been amended once since: a one-page Housing Addendum adopted on December 20, 2022, covering senior and affordable owner-occupied housing only.
The Plan's analysis of infrastructure capacity, population projections, transportation, environmental risk, and future land use was last refreshed nine years ago. The Village now faces a proposed multi-hundred-unit residential development at McFetridge Farm, variously described publicly as 200, 250, or up to 500 units.
In plain terms, this hub asks: Is a nine-year-old Plan the right foundation for that decision, and is the Village following the Plan it already has?
The Comprehensive Plan does not stand alone. Several Village-adopted documents and related resources work alongside it. If you read only one, you miss how Penn Yan's planning framework is meant to work. Here is what each one does:
The governing planning document — the policy framework all the others operate under. Adopted in March 2017, it sets the Village's direction, identifies issues, lays out policy goals, and assigns implementation tasks to specific boards and departments. Zoning, subdivision rules, and infrastructure decisions are all supposed to flow from it.
Look here if: You want to know what Penn Yan said in 2017 about how the Village should grow.
The only formal amendment to the 2017 Plan. A one-page document adopted by the Village Board of Trustees on December 20, 2022, covering senior and affordable owner-occupied housing only. It identifies four recommendation areas — targeted zoning changes, scale limits, buffer zones, and lighting standards — but does not update the Plan's underlying population baseline, infrastructure analysis, or 10-year housing demand projection.
Look here if: You want to know what the 2022 amendment changed — and what it deliberately did not change.
The companion volume holding community workshop minutes, the 24-stakeholder interview record, the 65-item Community Preference Survey results, and the consultant economic analyses that the main Plan summarizes. 81 pages.
Look here if: You want to see what residents said in 2014-2015 before it was summarized in the main Plan.
The technical implementation manual. Adopted the same month as the Comprehensive Plan, this engineering standards document sets the design requirements (water, sewer, stormwater, roads, electric) that every developer must meet for any project within Village jurisdiction. Its own Introduction states it is intended to "supplement [the Comprehensive Plan's] policies by providing the technical details necessary to carry out general policy in a successful manner."
Look here if: You want to know the technical rules a developer must follow for water pipes, sewer lines, stormwater detention, roads, or electric service.
A topical sub-plan covering Village parks, recreation programs, and facility upgrades. Subordinate to the Comprehensive Plan but identifies its own specific recommendations. A Cornell Design Connect update may have been completed in 2017-2018 (FOIL pending).
Look here if: You want to know what the Village has committed to on parks, trails, recreation programs, and waterfront access.
The five planning documents Penn Yan has adopted or developed between 1989 and 2026 — the consultants, steering committees, funding sources, and adoption records that produced each version.
Look here if: You want to know who has shaped Penn Yan's planning history — and how the cadence has changed.
Timeline →"How often is a Village supposed to update its Comprehensive Plan? Is there a rule?" Full §7-722 analysis and the complete Yates County peer comparison table. Headline answer appears in the "Why This Matters Right Now" section on this hub; the full detail is on this subpage.
Cadence detail →A working inventory of the specific implementation tasks the 2017 Plan committed the Village to performing — including the stormwater management plan, Circulation/Access/Parking Study, Countywide Housing Study, and Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan — and the documentation status of each.
Look here if: You want a status check on what the Village said it would do — and what's been documented since.
Inventory →How the proposed multi-hundred-unit McFetridge Farm development measures against the 2017 Plan's findings, recommendations, and Future Land Use Map — and the related annexation and eminent-domain proceedings.
Look here if: You want to see the Plan applied to an active development case.
Case study →In May 2026, the Village of Penn Yan is in active litigation over the proposed annexation of the 72.76-acre McFetridge Farm parcel from the Town of Milo. The development concept, variously described in public reporting as 200 units (Fingerlakes1.com, October 2024) or as 250-500 units (Town of Milo Eminent Domain Resolution and a Finger Lakes Times op-ed), is the active question putting pressure on the Comprehensive Plan in 2026. The Village's nine-year-old Plan is the document supposed to determine whether such a development fits the Village's planned future.
That Plan's Future Land Use Map, printed in the Future Land Use section near the back of the document, does not show the McFetridge parcel as a planned development area. The Plan's Implementation Tables, in the Priority Task Implementation section, assigned the Village specific tasks, including drafting a stormwater management plan, completing a Circulation/Access/Parking Study, and conducting a Countywide Housing Study. As of May 2026, none of those tasks appear completed in the public record reviewed for this hub. The 2022 Housing Addendum identified demand for "around 500 new owner-occupied homes in Yates County" — a countywide figure that some have treated as support for a single 500-unit project on one site. Whether that reading matches the Plan's own language is a question the McFetridge Compliance Audit subpage addresses.
How often is a Village supposed to update its Comprehensive Plan? The short answer is that there is no fixed statewide rule. New York State Village Law §7-722(10) says each Village must set its own review interval in the Plan itself. Penn Yan's 2017 Plan set a planning horizon to 2026 and recommended internal review every one to two years. Both markers are now at or past due. Elsewhere in Yates County, the Village of Dundee is updating its plan, the Village of Rushville completed an update in 2023, and the Town of Potter is updating its plan after decades. A pending state bill, A49, would impose a mandatory 10-year update requirement for the first time. Full peer comparison and statutory analysis appear on the Statutory Cadence subpage.
The Plan's planning horizon — set by the Plan itself — is 2026. The Plan recommends review "every one to two years." Both targets are at or past due. The active McFetridge proceeding is the test case for whether a nine-year-old Plan, amended only once on a narrow housing question, can credibly inform a multi-hundred-unit development decision. This hub exists to address that.
The questions on this page are not abstract. They connect directly to the McFetridge Farm development and the related annexation and eminent-domain proceedings. For the active case coverage, start here:
WHY NOW
Current pressure point
"A nine-year-old Plan is now being tested by a proposed 500-unit development decision."
2017 Plan set the long-range framework — now nine years old.
2022 Addendum updated only a narrow housing slice.
McFetridge now tests whether that framework still holds up.
Primary sources for this hub:
This hub was last reviewed on May 17, 2026. Specific factual claims on each subpage carry their own source citations. The Village of Penn Yan has not been consulted in the preparation of this hub. PennYanCitizens.com is an independent civic-journalism site; we are not affiliated with the Village of Penn Yan, the Town of Milo, or Yates County government.
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