City of Dunkirk Awarded $74,700 Towards Smart Growth

Mayor Rosas is happy to report that the City of Dunkirk’s Consolidated Funding Application (CFA) to update the current Zoning Code was awarded $74,700. This is great news as we as a city will update our code to plan and prepare for a more modern-day form-based code, and to account for new and rapidly changing technology such as wireless and 5G, solar, commercial districts, and other aspects of the code that will be examined. It will likely be a one-year process but is a positive step forward in the City’s improvement for development. Dunkirk is taking another step into the future with this grant award as we take what we have in place, and vastly improve upon it.

The City of Dunkirk adopted an updated Comprehensive Plan in December 2019 that specifically stated that it should be followed by a review and update of the City’s various development controls including zoning, subdivision regulations, and other related codes

and ordinances. It is essential that all development controls be in accordance with and compliment the new Comprehensive Plan. Therefore, the City of Dunkirk seeks to update its Zoning Code to improve the alignment of current and historical development patterns and plan for strategic smart growth development. Based on previous experience by the Development Department in the City of Dunkirk, in preparation for the City’s updated Comprehensive Plan, a scope of work is proposed to update the Zoning Code to

incorporate a Form-Based Code that will align with the Comprehensive Plan. This will allow the city to codify its historical patterns and help to introduce smart growth principles to provide more certainty to residents, developers, and officials and improve the city's most important land use tool.