PAINTED POST, N.Y. (WENY) -- The old Ingersoll Rand Foundry site on West Water Street in Painted Post has been sitting vacant for quite some time, but now, the Village of Painted Post is asking for the public's opinion about what should happen to the site.  In a spirited roundtable discussion, neighbors could voice their concerns, before anything happens to that site.

"This was a project funded by a grant. It's actually two grants, one is through New York State and one is through Appalachian Regional Commission. Those two grants are funding us to do pre-development work so that we can understand what is acceptable to the residents, what's acceptable to the infrastructure that exists, and then to design a plan for how we can propose future use of the site," said Chelsea Robertson, the executive director of the Southern Tier Central Regional Planning and Development Board.

The goal of the community discussion was to determine the potential for the foundry site.  Neighbors got three dot stickers each, to flag their top three concerns about the site.  The overwhelming winners; contamination and increased traffic.

"We have a park that's right there and when you're talking about increased truck traffic, you know you have the safety of the kids as well as the neighborhood and the quality of life. This is a quiet little village. We didn't need tons of trucks to be coming in and out of that place," said Mike Hansford, a resident of West Water Street.

Robertson says, currently there are no developments being proposed for that site.  This study is just to gain community input about potential future developments.

"It's just an open, vacant site in the village of Painted Post," said Robertson.  "It's the first time we've been able to have that open discussion amongst the residents. So what we do with that is we take that in, we consider the environmental factors of just any development that you would consider."

There will be another session about the site happening on Saturday, July 13th, at 1 p.m. at the Painted Post Village Hall.  The meeting is open to the public.  Comments can also be sent [email protected].