The investigation into the creation of a potential Chautauqua Lake District is moving forward.
The Chautauqua Lake Partnership and Rehabilitation Agency gave the County Planning Department the okay at its May meeting to look into the scope of work involved to do a feasibility study of such a district.
Chautauqua County Industrial Development Agency CEO Mark Geise said a consultant would then make a recommendation, “Yes, or no, does it makes sense to try to create one district? Or if not, then does it make sense to create two districts or does it not make sense to do either one of those things? What about user fees? And then looking at how this thing would be managed.”
Advisory Group member and Ellicott Town Supervisor Pat McLaughlin said he thinks it’s good to move forward but there are many unanswered questions, “Are the people who live on the lake going to pay the higher percentage and then as you move away from the lake you’re going to pay a little bit less? Those really, at this point, are some unanswered questions. There have been suggestions on what those might be, but I think we have to reach a point where we know what the budget, what the total is we have to charge for this and we just don’t have those answers yet.”
Geise said the goal is to report back to the group in a month in what would be in the feasibility study, “Just what would the scope of work of that look like? And what do we think ballpark something like that would cost? And then have this group say yes and, by the way, where the money would come from.”
Any recommendation by the Chautauqua Lake Partnership and Rehabilitation Agency on creating a Lake District would still have to be approved by the Chautauqua County Legislature.
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