Poughkeepsie drafts new comprehensive plan; urges numerous improvements

The draft of a new comprehensive plan is undergoing review in the city of Poughkeepsie. The document takes a dispassionate look at the Poughkeepsie of today and lays out possible strategies for bringing about changes to produce a Poughkeepsie for 2040.

The current comprehensive plan process that resulted in production of the draft document has taken about a year. In addition to bringing in outside consultants, the city established a steering committee of community leaders, conducted online surveys and held a series of open houses to gain public input.

The city explains that comprehensive plans provide the legal basis for enacting and enforcing zoning regulations and other policies that shape where and how development happens.

In looking back, the draft comprehensive plan finds that the city of Poughkeepsie was 23% smaller in 2020 with a population of 30,341 than when at its peak in 1950, but the population has largely stabilized since reaching a low point in 1980.

At the county level, limited population growth over the past decade is projected to continue into the next 20 years due, in part, to the aging of the population. The Dutchess County population in the 2020 census was 293,524. The draft comprehensive plan notes that the city”™s population is younger, and has been aging at a slower rate, than the rest of the county.

Contrary to trends in many of the upstate New York cities, the poverty rate in Poughkeepsie was lower in 2019 than it was in 2000 after experiencing a rise in the wake of the Great Recession. In addition to a smaller poverty rate, the city”™s share of poverty in the county has fallen sharply since 2000.

Despite these positive trends, the city”™s poverty rate remains more than double the countywide rate. Child poverty (25.9% in 2019) remains on the high side despite falling over the past decade.

The city of Poughkeepsie had 5,751 people at or below the poverty level in 2019 compared with 25,065 in all of Dutchess County.

According to the draft comprehensive plan, the declining poverty rate in Poughkeepsie has occurred alongside a dramatic change in educational achievement. In 2000, there were nearly 1,500 more adults in the city without a high school diploma than there were adults with at least a four-year college degree. By 2019, the reverse was true. The decline in adults without a high school diploma was largely driven by the deaths of older adults who were raised early in the 20th Century when leaving school to enter the workforce was much more common.

Despite the rise in college graduates who live in the city, their share of the population (23.3%) remained well below countywide levels (35%).

Despite the transformational shift in educational attainment in Poughkeepsie since 2000, the median household income has barely budged when adjusted for inflation. In 2000, adjusted for 2019 dollars, it was $43,824. In 2019, it was $43,794.

The comprehensive plan said that the high share of adults in the city with less than an associate degree (67.4% compared with 54.1% throughout Dutchess County), and income stagnancy among those households, is one reason for the lack of change in median income. Another potential cause is the presence of relatively new college graduates in the city who are in the early phases of their careers and move away to other parts of the county where they can earn more money.

The draft comprehensive plan found that the number of jobs in the city of Poughkeepsie remained mostly in the 14,000 to 14,500 range between 2002 and 2019. However, during those same years, the health care sector became increasingly dominant, rising from a 32% share of all jobs in the city to 43%. The second and third largest sectors in 2019, education and accommodations/food services, were well behind at 7% each.

Data showed that in 2002, 21% of jobs in the city were held by Poughkeepsie residents. That share that fell to 16% (or 1 in 6) by 2019. The share of workers living in Poughkeepsie who traveled at least 10 miles to get to their jobs climbed from 41% in 2002 to 54% by 2019, and the share traveling at least 50 miles grew from 18% to 29%.

The draft comprehensive plan pointed out that decades of steady erosion of its tax base resulted in Poughkeepsie facing a critical financial condition only a few years ago when its credit rating was downgraded to just above junk bond status. Poughkeepsie”™s fiscal outlook has improved in recent years and its tax base has rebounded. But, its fiscal health remains weak compared with the county and surrounding municipalities.

The draft plan says that a wealth gap between the north and south parts of the city has significant implications for long-term planning and plan implementation.

The homeownership rate for all households in the city in 2019 was 35%. For households making less than $100,000 it was 28%. Keeping that rate from slipping will be a significant achievement. The comprehensive plan looks to set a target of bringing the homeownership rate back up to 32% by 2032. On the north side of the city, where homeownership is lower with an average of 18% across the Census Tracts north of Main Street, the plan sets a similarly aggressive target of 25% by 2032.

The draft comprehensive plan shows that Poughkeepsie”™s downtown and Main Street corridor contain 40% of all business addresses in the city. It also finds that a persistently high share of those business addresses are vacant and it proposes reducing the business vacancy rate to 12% by 2032.

Growing the city”™s share of young businesses is one way the plan suggests downtown vacancies can be filled.

The draft comprehensive plan wants to see Poughkeepsie emerge as a community of choice, meaning households and businesses that have options will increasingly choose the City of Poughkeepsie.

The comprehensive plan suggests that one way to help build the downtown would be to establish a Downtown Business Improvement District. It also suggests that the city develop a multiyear citywide street paving schedule and that the city commit to increasing police funding.

The draft comprehensive plan emphasizes the importance of streetscape improvements through having good-quality sidewalks, plantings and street furniture such as benches.

“The quality of the public realm, if not properly maintained and updated, negatively impacts the private commercial development nearby,” the draft comprehensive plan said.

It recommended that the city set up a committee that includes representatives from the Common Council, Planning Board, and city staff to make recommendations on which areas of the city need work. It also suggests that there should be what it calls a “whole block/whole community” working group that includes city staff and representatives of partnering public and nonprofit agencies that would strategize on what improvements can be made to various areas and annually assess the work that is done.

The draft comprehensive plan says Poughkeepsie needs to improve the residential quality of life, expand access to good and affordable housing and strengthen civic life and commercial vitality.