As per the Town’s zoning regulations, the submission of a NND floating zone petition application requires that the applicant appear before the Town Board and Planning Board at a pre- application meeting. The purpose of the first meeting is to:

• solicit preliminary non-binding comments of the Town Board and Planning Board with regard to the consistency of the NND proposal with the criteria set forth in §100-28.B;
• identify any issues that would need to be addressed during the NND review process; and
• review a sketch plan that conveys conceptually the use and site improvements being proposed.

Download the PDF

The Town Board and Planning Board held a joint session this past Tuesday to submit comments to the Durst Corporation on their pre-application submission for a New Neighborhood Development designation under the newly adopted Zoning Regulations. The 18 different criteria for NND status were reviewed and commented on individually over the course of the meeting. Many important issues were raised so that the applicant can address them prior to submitting their final application.

Following the review of the individual criteria, the newly elected town board member Sandra David read her comments in full into the record, speaking more broadly to the issues at hand. Plainly stated, the purpose of the NND is to allow our community to negotiate with the developer and issue bonus units insofar as there are correlating community benefits. Her comments speak directly to the open question of whether or not the Durst Development will benefit our community or not. It is a must read. Please forward widely.

Sandra David’s comments on the Durst pre-application for an NND.

March 16, 2010 – My comments tonight will be to give a broad brush response to what Jennifer Van Tyle characterized as a broad brush approach to the pre-application.  Although, as a group I believe we will be reviewing the 18 criteria that we must consider before approving the NND, I would like to address the issues, on balance, that need to be considered when assessing the benefits to the Town of Pine Plains.  All  residents want what is BEST for the Town.  What that “BEST” is will be the debate during this process.

Read the rest of this entry »

Now that the zoning law has been enacted by the Pine Plains Town Board, the Durst Organization is beginning the application process for a New Neighborhood District zoning change.  Doing so entails some very slight revisions to the project layout from the second version of the project.  You can view the “pre-application” project material (including maps) on the town website at http://pineplains-ny.gov/content/Generic/View/8.  The maximum number of units allowed on the whole property would be 624 (572 in Pine Plains and 52 in Milan). Durst has decided to take the option of paying the affordable housing fee (in lieu of building the 42 affordable units) to a dedicated affordable housing fund that will be set up by the town.  The above numbers of units on the property include the “previously approved” subdivision lots in both Milan and Pine Plains, the maximum number of bonus units allowed for in the zoning and the base net yield of units as outlined in the NND section of the zoning law.  Some of the bonus units are at the discretion of the town board for various community and commercial benefits provided by the developer; so the actual final number is not yet determined. Read the rest of this entry »

The zoning law was adopted at the October 15, 2009 Town Board meeting. The most salient features of the law are:

• It divides the town into various zoning districts with differing lot sizes or densities, varying from 20,000 square feet (15,000 if central sewer is installed) in the central hamlet districts to 5 acres in the rural district, including the agricultural overlay and the wellhead protection district.
• Although a number of commercial uses are allowed throughout the town (i.e. home businesses and other smaller impact commercial uses) major commercial development is concentrated in the hamlet center and hamlet main street districts. The latest zoning map now includes the flat land behind Stewarts on the Village Green property in the hamlet main street district.
• The agricultural overlay zone covering about ¾ of the rural district includes properties currently or previously used in agriculture (raising crops or pasturing livestock), properties with prime soils or soils of statewide importance and properties included in the County Agricultural District. However, none of the Carvel property is included in the Agricultural Overlay even kthough it meets the first two criteria. The zone
  does not differ from the underlying rural district in allowed density but it restricts placement of houses on agricultural fields to the extent practicable.
• The subdivision regulations require that environmentally constrained acreage (steep slopes, wetlands, flood plains, etc.) be subtracted from the total acreage prior to calculating the net buildable acreage.
• Major subdivisions outside of the hamlet districts are in most cases to be designed as conservation subdivisions, with most of the units
  clustered on small lots and at least 50% of the land preserved as open space. In the agricultural overlay (A-O) district this requirement applies to any development of 5 or more housing units. In the rural and well head protection districts not included in the A-O overlay developments of between 5 and 14 units may be of a more conventional layout with Planning Board
  approval; although the preferred layout is still the conservation subdivision layout. Additionally, in all conservation subdivisions after deducting the environmentally constrained land an additional 15% of the
  remaining acreage is deducted from the total prior to determining the net buildable acreage.
• The zoning draft includes a New Neighborhood Development (NND) overlay that can be applied to a development in single ownership of at least 750 acres. The base density in an NND is one unit to 3 net buildable acres rather than one unit to 5 acres. The open space requirement is increased to 60% of the entire parcel from 50%. Prior to approving an NND rezoning
  application the developer will be required by the Town Board to commit to providing a number of community benefits and infrastructure improvements to the town beyond those obtainable through SEQRA review.
• The regulations also include generous bonus density awards for various community benefits-up to 40% additional units in a regular conservation subdivision and 50% in an NND.
• Affordable housing provisions apply to all developments of 10 or more units.

Jane Waters
November 9, 2009

Carvel (Durst)/Landmark: After the overwhelmingly negative reaction from the public and many experts representing PPU, Scenic Hudson, the Dutchess Land Conservancy, the county planning office and even the State Department of Environmental Conservation in the series of public hearings held in the spring of 2008; the Carvel/Durst team submitted a major revision of their large golf development proposal to the Planning Board. Work on this new “preferred” alternative plan initially was led by Alexander (Alex) Felson, an expert ecological planner now on the faculty at Yale, and the multinational planning firm EDAW. This plan has widened buffer zones around important wetlands and vernal pools and has much more dedicated connected open space. It clusters most of the development around the golf course, away from both the Ham Brook and the Route 199 view shed. The number of housing units is reduced to 648 (576 in Pine Plains, 61 in Milan and 11 on lots that are partly in both towns). The 18 hole golf course is redesigned with the second nine extending towards 199 on the west side of the property. There will no longer be an additional 9 hole academy course. Read the rest of this entry »

The final draft of the zoning law will be adopted at the October 15, 2009 Town Board meeting. Prior to that, one more workshop meeting will be held on Tuesday, October 6 at 7PM to review the wording of a few final revisions made in the law in the September 10th workshop meeting. The most salient features of the law are: Read the rest of this entry »

Over a year ago the Town Board hired a new planner (Bonnie Franson of Tim Miller and Associates) to assist in its review and revision of the draft zoning law. The resulting draft law contains many changes from the draft produced by the Zoning Commission. The most critical change in the new draft zoning law is the addition of a New Neighborhood Development floating overlay zone that allows a developer of a very large project (over 750 acres) to increase density to one unit per three acres-a 60% increase in density from the density otherwise allowed in the rural district. Most of the critical comments made in the zoning hearings recently held (April, 2009) pertained to the NND (such as it appears to be tailored to appease Durst, it is inconsistent with the Comprehensive Town Plan and retaining rural character, the mechanics of implementation are unnecessarily complicated, etc.). In their initial meeting after the public comment period the Town Board dismissed those comments and most of the similar comments in the 160 letters that they received. They have increased the amount of dedicated open space in an NND to 60% from 50%’ a suggestion made by the Dutchess Land Conservancy and Scenic Hudson as well as PPU. Read the rest of this entry »

Carvel (Durst)/Landmark: After the overwhelmingly negative reaction from the public and many experts representing PPU, Scenic Hudson, the Dutchess Land Conservancy, the county planning office and even the State Department of Environmental Conservation in the series of public hearings held in the spring of 2008; the Carvel/Durst team submitted a major revision of their large golf development proposal to the Planning Board.

Read the rest of this entry »

Over a year ago the Town Board hired a new planner (Bonnie Franson of Tim Miller and Associates) to assist in its review and revision of the draft zoning law. The resulting draft law contains many changes from the draft produced by the Zoning Commission. Among those changes are that instead of utilizing an environmental control formula for determining numbers of units that can be built on a parcel it excludes environmentally constrained acreage (i.e. land in steep slopes, open waters, flood plains and wetlands) prior to dividing the remaining rural district acreage by 5 in order to determine the numbers of units that can be built. Another difference is that while the agricultural overlay now includes much more land than it did in the Zoning Commission draft, the base density is changed from one unit per 10 acres to one unit per 5 buildable acres. The agricultural district now mainly imposes restrictions on the placement of the units, rather than reducing the number of units beyond what is allowed in the rural district. Read the rest of this entry »

Comments delivered to the Town Board relating to the Zoning Proposal submitted for public review. The comments center mainly around the New Neighborhood District component of the proposed law. Read the letter here.

→ Lyons Testimony on Proposed Zoning

→ Lisa Nagle of Elan Planning and Design’s Testimony

→ Mark Wildonger of Scenic Hudson’s Testimony