What Makes Hurley a Great Place to Live?

This plan addresses many individual components of community planning, but ‘livability’ results from the interplay among them all. Housing, transportation, scenic views, good air, jobs, shopping, education – they all interact, for better or worse, on the quality of our lives as residents of this community.

No one wants their low traffic, dead-end street to become a connector road. But without connector roads, traffic bogs down. The experience of getting to work or shopping deteriorates for everyone.

No one wants ‘affordable’ housing in their neighborhood. But without diverse housing styles covering a range of prices our town will become too expensive for young families to settle here. Seniors on fixed incomes will be unable to maintain their homes. Town employees and others of us in the ‘middle class’ will have to leave our community. We will become a community of only wealthy newcomers as has happened in many communities south of us.

If we don’t pay attention to our environmental and health threats, our employment opportunities, or how we encourage neighborliness, then the livability of our community suffers.

How Do We Ensure that Hurley Remains 'Livable?'

Maintaining and enhancing livability often means upsetting a few residents for the benefit of the whole.

The purpose of a comprehensive plan is to set the stage for those decisions so that the decisions can be made in a comprehensible and considered fashion. Our representatives shouldn’t make them based on the wishes of the immediate neighbors or those who can shout the loudest.

If, through the development and adoption of this plan, our community comes to agree on planning goals and lays out a map for achieving them, we will consider the many hours we have invested worth every minute.