Zoning Update
June 1, 2009
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 more
