The Village's only adopted long-term land-use policy document.
Adopted March 2017. Amended once, in December 2022, on housing only. Last reviewed on this page: May 2026.
Penn Yan's 2017 Comprehensive Plan is the Village's only adopted long-term land-use policy document. It was adopted by the Village Board of Trustees in March 2017 and carries the cover year 2016 because that was the year the steering committee finished drafting. The Plan sets its own planning horizon at 2026, the end-date stated in the document itself.
The Comprehensive Plan replaced the 2000 Comprehensive Master Plan and built upon the 1989 Village of Penn Yan Master Plan before that.
The Comprehensive Plan was drafted by The Steinmetz Planning Group, with mapping by Clark Patterson Lee and market analysis by Urban Advisors, Ltd. It was funded by a $40,000 Empire State Development Incentive Proposal awarded in March 2014 through the 2013 NYS Consolidated Funding Application process. A 15-member community steering committee oversaw the drafting between 2014 and 2017.
The Comprehensive Plan recommends review "every one to two years." This was not outside advice. The Plan itself says the Village should review it on that schedule, as New York State Village Law § 7-722(10) requires each Village to set a review interval as part of the adoption process.
The Comprehensive Plan has been formally amended once. The December 20, 2022 Housing Addendum is a one-page document addressing senior and affordable owner-occupied housing only. It does not update the Plan's underlying population, infrastructure, or fiscal analysis.
Read the Housing Addendum subpage →The Comprehensive Plan makes six factual findings that anchor its entire policy framework. Each finding is sourced to a specific page of the Plan. Each finding below includes the Plan's own language, the page citation, and a brief plain-English note on why it matters. The interpretive work — comparing these findings to what is happening in Penn Yan in 2026 — happens elsewhere on this site.
Penn Yan's 2017 population of approximately 5,203 residents was projected to remain steady through 2025.
The Plan's own words (p. 16):
"Penn Yan's current population of 5,203 is expected to remain at this level over the next decade with no significant periods of growth or decline predicted into 2025."
Why this matters
This baseline is foundational. The Plan's analysis of infrastructure capacity, fiscal projections, traffic, schools, and emergency response all assumes a Village population of roughly 5,200 through the Plan's horizon. Any major land-use decision that would materially change this baseline is, by definition, a decision the Plan did not contemplate.
2026 reality check
The 2020 U.S. Census recorded a Village population of 5,056 — approximately 3% below the Plan's 2017 baseline, broadly consistent with the Plan's projection of a flat population trajectory. The baseline assumption has approximately held. (Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Decennial Census, Penn Yan village, NY.)
The average Penn Yan household contains approximately 2.21 persons.
Source: 2017 Comprehensive Plan, p. 16 (Demographic Profile section).
Why this matters
Household size is the number that turns housing units into estimated population change for planning purposes. Combined with the population baseline in Finding 1, it helps show how many new residents a proposal could add.
The Plan projects demand for approximately 146 new single-family units across all price points over its ten-year horizon.
Source: 2017 Comprehensive Plan, p. 57 (Housing section).
Why this matters
The Plan's projected total housing demand for the entire decade is 146 units. The largest single segment within that projection is 70 units in the $100,000–$150,000 price range. Any housing proposal that exceeds the Plan's total ten-year demand projection is a proposal the Plan did not analyze.
Penn Yan carries the highest non-taxable land share of any Yates County municipality — approximately 29 percent.
Source: 2017 Comprehensive Plan, p. 34, Figure 16.
Why this matters
Twenty-nine percent of the Village's land is not on the tax rolls. The Plan attributes this to the Village's three institutional roles: county seat (county buildings), regional service hub (multiple churches, not-for-profit institutions), and host to the public school system. The Plan identifies this share as a structural revenue constraint — meaning Village finances are more sensitive than typical to any change in service load relative to taxable base.
The Plan's Future Land Use Map covers the Village boundary as it existed in 2016–2017. It does not include any land outside that boundary.
Source: 2017 Comprehensive Plan, p. 59 (Future Land Use section).
Why this matters
The Plan's infrastructure sizing, traffic analysis, service capacity calculations, and fiscal projections were performed for the Village as it existed at the time of adoption. Any parcel outside the 2017 Village boundary — including anything that might be added through annexation — was not part of the Plan's analytical work.
See the map
View the Future Land Use Map (Plan page 59) on Box → — the map shows the Village boundary as it existed at adoption.
Penn Yan simultaneously serves three roles: county seat, largest residential center in Yates County, and regional commercial/service hub.
Source: 2017 Comprehensive Plan, p. 34.
Why this matters
Each of these three roles generates non-taxable institutional uses or service demands. The Plan returns repeatedly to the structural mismatch between Penn Yan's regional service load and its taxable base. Any analysis of a major proposal must weigh these structural constraints against the proposed change.
The Comprehensive Plan organizes its policy recommendations into eight thematic chapters, carried forward and updated from the 2000 Comprehensive Master Plan. Each chapter identifies issues, lays out goals, and assigns implementation tasks to specific Village bodies. Below is a summary of what each chapter says the Village should do. The Plan's full text — the actual recommendations, in the Plan's own words — is available via the Box.com link in Section 6 below.
The Plan's land-use chapter sets policy direction for how parcels in the Village should be used, what zoning patterns should govern future development, and how the Future Land Use Map should be applied in site plan and subdivision review.
Goals and recommendations for parks, recreation programs, and waterfront access. This chapter overlaps with the separately adopted Parks & Recreation Master Plan (2010, updating 2001).
Goals for the Village's road network, pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure, traffic safety, and access management. Includes implementation tasks such as a Circulation/Access/Parking Study and a Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan.
The Plan's analysis of water, sewer, electric, stormwater, and emergency-services capacity, plus recommendations for capital planning. Includes the implementation task of drafting a stormwater management plan.
Recommendations for the visual character of the Village, including downtown streetscape, gateway treatments, signage, and design standards. The 1998 Commercial District Streetscape Development Plan is referenced as a predecessor document.
Goals for historic preservation, including support for the Historic Preservation Commission (established by Local Law No. 3-1989), cultural programming, and protection of the Village's historic building stock.
Economic development goals, including recommendations for downtown vitality, employer retention, workforce development, and the Village's relationship with the Finger Lakes Economic Development Center.
The chapter that the 2022 Housing Addendum updates. Covers housing-stock conditions, projected demand, affordability concerns, and the relationship between housing development and protection of natural resources (Keuka Lake watershed, agricultural land, wetlands). The 2022 Addendum is treated in depth on its dedicated subpage.
A comprehensive plan matters only if it is carried out. That means the specific tasks the Plan assigns to Village bodies and the periodic reviews it says the Village should perform. Below is a summary of what has been documented in the public record and what has not.
The Comprehensive Plan assigned six specific implementation tasks to the Village — covering stormwater management, transportation studies, housing analysis, active-transportation planning, electric incentives, and community programming. The complete inventory and the documentation status of each task is tracked on the Undelivered Deliverables subpage.
The Comprehensive Plan also committed the Village to internal review "every one to two years" throughout the 10-year horizon.
The publicly indexed record reviewed for this page does not yet show completed versions of the implementation tasks summarized above. The single formal Plan amendment in the nine years since adoption is the December 20, 2022 Housing Addendum, which covers a narrow housing-policy topic and does not address the broader implementation tasks. The Addendum is treated in full on its dedicated subpage.
No formal Comprehensive Plan review has been located in the publicly indexed record for the interval between adoption (March 2017) and November 2022 — a roughly five-year-eight-month window in which the Plan's own recommended review cadence ("every one to two years") would have suggested three to five reviews. The lone subsequent amendment, the December 2022 Housing Addendum, addresses one chapter (housing) of the Plan's eight.
This interval covered substantial Village activity. The construction of Keuka Gardens (a 42-unit affordable housing development announced under construction in November 2018) added measurable load to the Village's housing stock during a window the Plan had projected as approximately flat. In March 2018 the Village adopted Chapter 202 Article XIA establishing new Planning Board procedures (Local Law No. 3-2018). The $10 million Downtown Revitalization Initiative (DRI) award, announced in 2018, was implemented across multiple downtown projects during this same window — a major downtown capital program carried out during a period for which no documented Comprehensive Plan review has been located. Each of these actions raises the question whether Comprehensive Plan conformance findings were made on the record. None have been located in the indexed sources reviewed for this page.
This page does not claim that no review occurred during the 2017–2022 interval. It says that no review is visible in the publicly indexed record, that the Comprehensive Plan's own review cadence would have suggested multiple reviews during that window, and that the question can be tested with a focused FOIL request for Village Board of Trustees and Planning Board agendas from March 2017 through November 2022.
A separate subpage at
/topics/comprehensive-plan/undelivered-deliverables/
is being developed to track each of the specific implementation tasks the
Plan committed to, along with the documentation status of each. That
subpage is currently a stub; full analysis is in development.
Read these before judging any proposal.
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:
2017 Comprehensive Plan
77 pages, adopted 2017
View PDF →
2017 Plan Appendix
Workshop minutes, surveys, public input
View PDF →
2022 Housing Addendum
Housing targets update, December 2022
View PDF →
Infrastructure Design Criteria
Engineering standards, 283 pages with diagrams
View PDF →
Parks & Recreation Master Plan
Long-range parks and recreation planning
View PDF →
Historical Timeline
Five plans, 1989-2026: authorship and cadence
Read on this site →
IN DEVUndelivered Deliverables
Plan commitments tracked by completion status
Coming soon →
Route 14A Case Study
Proposal vs. Plan: how the 500-unit development measured against adopted policy
Read on this site →
The Comprehensive Plan is referenced across PennYanCitizens.com wherever the Village's adopted planning policy bears on an active question. Here is where it shows up.
The hub page covers the Plan in context with the other Village planning documents (Infrastructure Design Criteria, Parks & Recreation Master Plan, and the 2022 Housing Addendum). It also covers the statutory framework under New York State Village Law § 7-722 and the question of how often a Village is required to update its plan.
Visit the hub →The only formal amendment to the Comprehensive Plan. A one-page document adopted by the Village Board of Trustees on December 20, 2022, covering senior and affordable owner-occupied housing only. Treated in full on its own subpage, including what it does, what it deliberately does not update, and the public-record gaps in its adoption documentation.
Visit the page →The five planning documents Penn Yan has adopted (or developed) between 1989 and 2026, including the consultants, steering committees, funding sources, and adoption records that produced each version.
Visit the page →The engineering manual that operationalizes the Comprehensive Plan. Adopted the same month (March 2017) as the Plan itself. Sets technical requirements for water, sewer, stormwater, roads, and electric service.
Visit the page →In Development. The forthcoming McFetridge Compliance Audit subpage will use the Comprehensive Plan and the 2022 Housing Addendum as the primary policy framework for evaluating whether the Village has followed its own adopted planning commitments in the proposed McFetridge Farm annexation.
Page in development — no link yet.Primary sources for this subpage:
This subpage was last reviewed on May 20, 2026. Specific factual claims on this subpage carry their own source citations. The Village of Penn Yan has not been consulted in the preparation of this subpage. 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.
Some content on this subpage depends on confirmation through Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request responses, in-person inspection at the Village Clerk's office, or access to historical records not currently in PennYanCitizens.com's library. Where claims remain to be confirmed by FOIL or further research, this subpage so notes.
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