Who wrote them, who adopted them, and what's missing from the public record.
Documented 1989 through May 2026. Last reviewed on this page: May 2026.
Since 1989, Penn Yan has had four formally adopted Village planning documents, plus one parallel community-produced document that was never formally adopted by the Village Board. Together they form the planning chain that still shapes land use in the Village today. The names changed over time — Master Plan, then Comprehensive Master Plan, then Comprehensive Plan — but their basic role stayed the same.
| Year | Document |
|---|---|
| 1989 | Village of Penn Yan Master Plan |
| January 2000 | Comprehensive Master Plan |
| March 2017 | 2016 Comprehensive Plan |
| December 20, 2022 | Housing Addendum to the 2016 Comprehensive Plan |
| Year | Document |
|---|---|
| August 2015 | Penn Yan Community Vision Plan (Vision 20/20) |
The Village has updated its main planning document only twice in 37 years: from the 1989 Master Plan to the 2000 Comprehensive Master Plan, and from the 2000 Plan to the 2017 Plan. The only amendment since 2017 — the December 2022 Housing Addendum — is a one-page document focused narrowly on senior housing and owner-occupied affordable housing. The 2015 Vision 20/20 Plan ran alongside the Village's official update process. Parts of it were folded into the 2017 Plan, but Vision 20/20 itself was never adopted as binding Village policy.
Comprehensive Plans are not neutral documents. They reflect the consultants who write them, the steering committees that direct them, the elected officials who adopt them, and the public-input methods used to gather community priorities. Each of those choices shapes what ends up in the Plan and what does not.
This history matters now because the Village is weighing a proposed multi-hundred-unit residential development at McFetridge Farm against the aging assumptions built into this planning chain. Penn Yan residents who want to understand the Village's current planning framework benefit from knowing where it came from. Was the 1989 Plan written in-house or by an outside consultant? Who paid for the 2000 update? What public-input methods shaped the 2017 Plan? Which Mayor and Trustees voted to adopt each version? And when, if ever, were the Plans formally reviewed between major updates, as the Plans themselves recommended?
These are not abstract questions. The 2017 Plan set a 10-year planning horizon to 2026 and recommended internal review "every one to two years." Both markers are now at or past due. Whether the Plan has been maintained — and whether the planning chain is still intact and verifiable in the public record — is a legitimate civic concern. This subpage documents what we have been able to confirm about each Plan's authorship, what remains a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) target, and where the gaps in the public record leave questions the Village should answer.
Each of the five documents in Penn Yan's planning chain is summarized below. Each card shows what we have been able to verify about who produced it, how it was funded, and how it was adopted.
Status: Confirmed to exist; specific adoption date unknown.
What we know:
What we don't know: The authoring consultant, specific adoption date, adopting Mayor and Trustees, and funding source — all FOIL targets (see Section 7).
Status: Confirmed; consultant identified; specific adoption date and resolution number unknown.
What we know:
What we don't know: Specific adoption date, resolution number, adopting Mayor and Trustees, funding source, and Yates County GML §239-m referral record — all FOIL targets (see Section 7).
Status: Community-produced document, NOT formally adopted by Village Board, but extensively cited in the 2017 Comprehensive Plan.
What we know:
Why this card is visually distinguished: This document represents a parallel community-input track, not a binding Village policy document.
What we don't know: Whether the Village Board formally acknowledged the Plan by resolution, and the full Vision 20/20 Steering Committee roster — FOIL targets (see Section 7).
Status: Fully documented; the most-verified document in the planning chain. Available on Box.
What we know:
What we don't know: Specific adoption date in March 2017, resolution number, SEQRA details, and whether any one-to-two-year reviews occurred between March 2017 and December 2022 — FOIL targets (see Section 7).
Status: Adopted; document available on Box.
What we know:
What we don't know: Resolution number, vote tally, public hearing record, SEQRA determination, and Planning Board drafting meetings — FOIL targets (see Section 7).
In addition to the four formal Comprehensive Plans and the Vision 20/20 community plan, the Village has been the subject of several studies and topical sub-plans that bear on land use. Some have been adopted by the Village Board and are in PennYanCitizens.com's library; others remain pending acquisition.
Adopted document. Available on Box.
A topical sub-plan covering Village parks, recreation programs, and facility upgrades. Adopted 2010 as an update to a 2001 Parks and Recreation Master Plan. A subsequent update may have been completed by Cornell University's Design Connect team circa 2017-2018, but completion and adoption status could not be confirmed.
View on Box →FOIL pending: Adopting resolution + Cornell Design Connect update status.
Adopted; text-only digital copy on Box.
The Village's binding engineering standards manual. 16 sections covering Design Criteria (sections 1-9) and Construction Specifications (sections 10-16).
Read the dedicated subpage → View on Box →🔒 NOT YET IN OUR LIBRARY — Document not yet obtained.
Status: Cited in research; not in our hands.
Multi-municipal study covering Penn Yan, Dundee, and four Towns including Milo and Barrington. Identified the area south of Penn Yan as Scenic Resource Overlay candidates. Directly relevant to the proposed McFetridge Farm development on Route 14A.
Considering filing FOIL with the Yates County Planning Department (see Section 7).
🔒 NOT YET IN OUR LIBRARY — Document not yet obtained.
Status: Cited in research; not in our hands.
Produced by Stuart I. Brown Associates, Inc. and Ingalls Planning and Design. Referenced in the 2017 Comprehensive Plan. Penn Yan is on Keuka Lake; this is the closest existing analogue to a NYS-DOS-approved Local Waterfront Revitalization Program (LWRP) the Village has.
Considering filing FOIL with the Village Clerk (see Section 7).
🔒 NOT YET IN OUR LIBRARY — Document not yet obtained.
Status: Cited in the 2017 Plan; not in our hands.
A 1998 downtown-focused streetscape blueprint referenced in the 2017 Comprehensive Plan. The consultant who prepared it and the funding source are unknown.
Considering filing FOIL with the Village Clerk (see Section 7).
Adopted by Yates County Legislature; resolution number unconfirmed.
The Yates County (not Penn Yan Village) Comprehensive Plan. Adopted in late 2020. Provides countywide planning framework that the Village must consider under GML §239-m referrals.
Publicly available on the County's website; resolution number is a FOIL target with the Yates County Clerk.
This is what PennYanCitizens.com has been able to obtain from Penn Yan's Comprehensive Plan document chain so far. For the missing items and the FOIL requests that could resolve them, see Section 7 below.
| Document | Status | Hosted on |
|---|---|---|
| 2017 Comprehensive Plan (77 pages) | Full PDF | Box |
| 2017 Comprehensive Plan Appendix (81 pages) | Full PDF | Box |
| 2022 Housing Addendum (1 page standalone) | Full PDF | Box |
| Infrastructure Design Criteria (March 2017) | Text-only PDF (diagrams missing — OCR loss) | Box (see dedicated subpage) |
| Parks & Recreation Master Plan (2010) | Full PDF | Box |
The following Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests are the clearest next steps for closing the remaining gaps in Penn Yan's planning record — both for the planning documents themselves and for adoption-record details on documents we already hold. Anyone can file a FOIL request, and the sample language below is written so a resident could paste it directly into a request.
PennYanCitizens.com is considering filing each of these FOIL requests. That means the records have been identified and the requests have been scoped, but no filing decision has been made yet. A focused FOIL request is more likely to get a clear answer than a broad one. The Village has 5 business days to acknowledge the request, then 20 days to respond or set a longer timeline. For the full FOIL guide, see /transparency/foil-requests/.
The historical record above shows a clear cadence pattern. The 1989 Plan was replaced by the 2000 Plan after 11 years. The 2000 Plan was replaced by the 2017 Plan after 17 years. The 2017 Plan is now in its 9th year and has been amended only once (the December 2022 Housing Addendum, which covers a narrow housing-policy topic).
Penn Yan's 2017 Plan set a 10-year planning horizon to 2026 and recommended internal review "every one to two years." No public record of any such formal review between March 2017 and December 2022 has been identified. The Housing Addendum, while adopted under the §7-722 amendment process, is a one-page document — not a comprehensive review of the Plan as a whole.
This matters because the Plan is now the document the Village uses to evaluate proposed development. The proposed McFetridge Farm development introduced earlier on this page is being evaluated against a Plan written before Yates County's housing market, infrastructure capacity, and waterfront priorities had reached their 2026 state. Whether a nine-year-old Plan, amended only once on a narrow housing question, can credibly inform a multi-hundred-unit development decision is the central question of the Comprehensive Plan Hub.
For full context, see:
Return to the hub to see the four planning documents together and the active issues shaping Penn Yan's planning framework.
Primary sources for this subpage:
This subpage was last reviewed on May 18, 2026. Many of the historical claims above remain dependent on confirmation through FOIL request responses, in-person inspection at the Village Clerk's office, or access to NYS Archives microfilm series A4466 (Penn Yan 1833-1992). 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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