The Westchester County Department of Planning launched Westchester 2025 - a Web-based format of its county-wide planning policies - with the intent of showing residents and municipalities the importance of working together as we shape and grow the county's infrastructure (roads, trains, sewers, etc) and communications capabilities (wider bandwidths, GIS technology, etc.). We need to keep pace with the global economy while being respectful of the environment.

A framework for planning and partnership

What should Westchester County look like in 2025? How do we ensure that we preserve the Westchester so many people love while moving to the future in a deliberate, progressive fashion? How do we best prepare for the environmental and land use challenges of which we are not yet aware?

These are questions the Westchester County Planning Department and the county’s citizen Planning Board have been exploring. Westchester 2025 expresses their thoughts on important land use policies and sets out a new framework for a planning partnership between the county and its 45 municipalities. The "2025 Context for County and Municipal Planning and Policies to Guide County Planning" was adopted by the county's Planning Board on May 6, 2008 and amended Jan. 5, 2010.

The Department of Planning maintains a “Local Planning Law Resource Guide” that provides examples of already in-place local land use ordinances that address a wide variety of subjects including sustainable development, environmental protection, historic preservation, tourism promotion, signage and parking and design review. The goals of the compilation are to allow local officials to see the vast palate of land use tools already in place in nearby communities and to make research and enactment easier.

Westchester 2025 grew from a tool chest of maps and data that municipalities and the county can reference as we plan and realize the future vision of our county over the next decade.

Patterns for Westchester
The 1996 "Patterns for Westchester" document is still an adopted plan of the Westchester County Planning Board. Only the “Assumptions and Policies” sections of "Patterns" have been replaced by the Westchester 2025’s "Context for County and Municipal Planning and Polices to Guide County Planning."

Westchester 2025 is designed to assist the county government and its 45 local municipalities to work together and speak with one regional vision, a critical need in the complex New York metropolitan area. Whether you're a planner or a concerned resident, you'll find tools on these Web pages that should help you understand your community's character and possible vision for the future.