Hudson Highlands Fjord Trail Joint Public Session Philipstown Resident Question and Ranking Results

The Villages of Cold Spring and Nelsonville and the Town of Philipstown are hosting a joint public session on Monday, May 8, 2023 at 7:00pm at the Haldane School Auditorium related to the proposed Hudson Highlands Fjord Trail. In order to ensure that this joint public session is organized around questions that are of greatest importance to local community members, we asked residents to submit questions and prioritize which questions will be asked to New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation officials and to the Hudson Highlands Fjord Trail representatives at the meeting. The following is a report on the results of this community process.

● Residents of Philipstown, Cold Spring and Nelsonville were asked to submit questions between April 12 at 9am to April 19 by 5pm. Residents could submit questions through an online form, by email, or by hard copy to the Village of Cold Spring;

● 217 total questions were submitted; 210 were submitted by Philipstown, Cold Spring and Nelsonville residents. Questions from non-residents or from those who did not identify their residence were eliminated. As such, 210 questions proceeded to ranking.

● Residents were asked to rank their top five priority questions from the 210 submitted questions between April 21 at 9am to April 28 by 5pm through an online form, by email, or by hard copy to the Village of Cold Spring;

● There were 146 responses submitted during the ranking process; 139 were counted. Seven were removed (no name included, non-Philipstown resident, duplicative votes, or no priorities were identified);

● Questions that were identified as a resident’s first priority were assigned five points, second priority was assigned four points, third priority was assigned three points, fourth priority was assigned two points, and fifth priority was assigned one point;

● Questions were ranked in order, with the questions that received the most points the highest ranked and the questions that received the least points the lowest ranked;

● The number of votes for each question was also tallied. 140 questions received votes; 70 questions received no votes;

● The questions that received votes were proposed by 30 different residents of Philipstown, 23 Village of Cold Spring residents, and 5 Nelsonville residents.

Please find below, links to the full 210 question set, with rankings, as well a subset of the top 15-ranked questions prioritized for addressing at the May 8th Joint Session. All 210 questions will be provided to the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation officials and to the Hudson Highlands Fjord Trail Staff, as well as to elected officials of the three municipalities for the public record.

Full 210 Ranked Questions – Joint Session on Fjord Trail – May 8, 2023

Top 15 Ranked Questions – Joint Session on Fjord Trail – May 8, 2023

Filed under: Announcements, Events, Hudson Highlands Fjord Trail, Meetings, MTA / Metro North Railroad, New York State, Parks, Town Board, Village of Cold Spring