KAUNEONGA LAKE — It was a chilly, windy day with sprinkles of snow flurries and occasionally sun pops shining through gray clouds.

Yet the cold didn't deter community members from coming together to walk the streets of Kauneonga Lake and talk transformation, healthy communities, design and potential.

“Sullivan Renaissance is really excited to be once again partnering with Cornell Cooperative Extension to bring in Project for Public Spaces,” said Renaissance Executive Director Denise Frangipane to all those gathered inside the Senior Center in Kauneonga Lake on Friday, March 10. “With us today for the healthy community places audit is Project for Public Spaces Senior Vice President Cynthia Nikitin and Project Associate Elka Gotfryd.”

Project for Public Spaces (PPS) is a nonprofit dedicated to helping people create and sustain public spaces, building stronger communities by using planning, design and educational organization.

They use a pioneering approach to placemaking that helps residents and community members transform their public spaces into exuberant places that accentuate local assets, encourage rejuvenation and serve the most basic needs.

“Renaissance chose Monticello and Kauneonga Lake for very different reasons. We chose Monticello because it has a specific space we'd like to try and activate with the village and Catskill Mountainkeeper, called the North Lot. It's the lot between the Government Center and Broadway, where the Farmer's Market is currently held during the summer,” stated Frangipane. “The reason we chose Kauneonga Lake is because we wanted to work with the idea of a healthy community places audit, which Bethel already has an established healthy community committee, and also because Kauneonga Lake has such great potential.

“A lot of great work has already been done over the past eight years or so here and we thought it would be wonderful to get out and walk around with Project for Public Spaces and really observe what's going on here and see what more we can do to be a healthier community.”

Before the walk audit began, Nikitin quickly went over what they would be focused on that afternoon, and why.

“We work on public spaces large and small, in communities rural and urban, American and global. We're about turning buildings inside out, creating destinations and leveraging the assets that already exist,” explained Nikitin. “So our walking audit is a way of articulating the intuitive feelings that you have when you're walking around. What works and what doesn't.

“The healthy communities audit is having the fire station, the senior center, the Department of Health, the Department of Planning, the residents, the churches, and the library, all focusing on one place together, so that all of their jurisdictions overlap and they can sort of solve each others problems. It saves money and it saves time when you have everyone together at the table.

“And health really begins with food,” she continued. “How accessible is healthy food in the community? Is there a farmers market? Is the area walkable and what transportation is there? So we're going to be looking at the interspace of a healthy community.”