Another revision is additional bonus density allowances given to developers in exchange for inclusion of community benefits in their proposals. Also the new version dictates layout more rigidly than the Zoning Commission draft did.

The most critical change in the new draft zoning law, however, 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, and 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 are considering increasing the amount of dedicated open space and not allowing any houses on at least some of that open space—which were suggestions made by the Dutchess Land Conservancy.

The major change they have decided to make in the law is the extension of the district allowing commercial uses to include the flat land behind Stewarts and the field off of Ryan Road behind the highway garage. They decided not to impose restrictions on the placement of one single family house, which was a change requested by many PPU members.

So far the Town Board has discussed having a public informational meeting to explain these changes, but have not mentioned holding more hearings prior to voting on the law. They have scheduled another workshop meeting for Tuesday, June 9th at 7:30PM to discuss any further changes and to review the comments on the DGEIS.

All developments not currently approved will have to conform to the new law when it is adopted. The moratorium on new major subdivision proposals ended on January 25, 2009 and will not be renewed.

A copy of the submission is included here and can also be found on the Pine Plains Central School District website

→ PPCSD Comments on Durst DEIS
→ Register Herald Reporting

“Whatever happens next, a developer’s plan for a sprawling, high-end golf community in rural northern Dutchess County must be scaled back.”

→ Read the editorial on the Journal’s website.

→ George Janes’ Photosimulation Critique of Durst DEIS”

George Janes of the Environmental Simulation Center has studied and critiqued the photosimulations provided in Durst Draft Environmental Impact Statement. The link to the entire document is below followed by Janes’ summary of conclusions.

“The photosimulations presented in the DEIS do not accurately disclose the proposal’s impact on visual resources. They have not been performed according to the accepted standards for photosimulation in the environmental review process. They should NOT be used as evidence as to the project’s impacts on visual resources, as they do not accurately depict the action proposed. Since the Scoping Document called for photosimulations, and since the photosimulations produced do not accurately depict the proposed development’s impact on visual resources, the Lead Agency should require the Applicant to produce additional materials that fully disclose those impacts.”

→ Read the letter here.

Released Mar 03, 2008

Jay Burgess
Director of Communications, Scenic Hudson, Inc.
Tel: (845) 473-4440 x222
Cell: (914) 489-0362
Fax: (845) 473-0740
jburgess@scenichudson.org

PINE PLAINS — An ecological assessment conducted by Scenic Hudson of the proposed Carvel Property Development in Pine Plains, Dutchess County, concludes the project would irreparably fragment an important wildlife habitat, contributing to the loss of rare species.

Jane Waters said she is a birder and gave them some additional sightings
beyond those reported in the bird studies in the DEIS of birds she has seen
on the property (kestrel, red shouldered hawk, more red tailed hawks, etc.).
She told them the pictured Great Horned Owl nest is likely originally the
nest of the red tailed hawks both they and she has seen near that nest and
they have likely built another near by.

She said that when birders are talking about ground nesting birds, they are
often referring to bobolinks, meadowlarks and certain rare sparrow species.
The DEIS reports bobolinks on the site and they have said that ground
nesting birds can use the golf course in the mitigation section. She said
that bobolinks, etc. can not use the golf course and quoted Steve Oresman’s
(Board member of the Connecticut Audubon Society and past president of the
Connecticut Ornithological Association) email to her to that effect, giving
Steve’s credentials and gave them a copy of Steve’s article on conservation
and the article on Bobolinks from Connecticut State of the Birds 2008. She
said the field on Woodward Hill Road is the critical area that should be
preserved and while they are not building on part of the field the houses
they do plan there should be moved off the field. Mowing should not be done
until after the third week in July.

Then she went on to the Barred Owls and said that both Barbara Butler
(co-author of The Birds of Dutchess County) and Steve Oresman thought it
would be very unusual to have more than one pair of Barred Owls on the
property, because they are scarce in the region. She said she wasn’t going
to question their observations, but to have 19 (or 18) areas where they were
heard and a possible 10 home ranges (statements from the DEIS) means they
might actually have the epicenter of the Barred Owl population in this part
of the state on the site. If that is true the area should be preserved as a
Barred Owl Preserve. They say themselves that the numbers are probably
secondary to the amount of unfragmented forest on the site and the planned
development will fragment that forest and destroy the habitat. For that
reason she agrees with the comments of Michael Klemens of Scenic Hudson,
Dutchess County Planning and others who have recommended that the
development be scaled back, much more clustered at the golf course area and
with 75% of the contiguous land truly protected.

I. Related to school impacts:
1. While Carvel says in the Chapter 1 overview they are basing their tax rates on the 2005 year for County, town and fire district and on the 2004-2005 year for school taxes (including property taxes that have to be raised per student – see note at the bottom of Table 1.7 on page 1-64 for instance), in fact in their analyses they actually use an “average cost per capita” and “average cost per pupil” method of analysis that uses five year averages to compute taxes (see p. 14-55 and subsequent pages). The relevant page is 14-59. Look at Table 14.35, Property Taxes per pupil: 2000-2005-PPCSD. They average the five year taxes per pupil as $8,147; saying that makes sense to do in order to even out blips from year to year. However, in fact the taxes are going up each year, not fluctuating as the graph shown here demonstrates. The only fluctuation is a slight difference in the amount of increase year over year. I think they therefore underestimate the taxes per student in their analyses. The values they list per year are $7,006 (2000-2001); $7,464 (2001-2002); $8,008
(2002-2003); $8,616 (2003-2004); $9,640 (2004-2005). To see how this throws off the estimates if you look at their appendix 14-2, Table B.8 you’ll see that the way they figure the data they say the property tax per pupil needed by year 5 is $9,666, which is in fact only a few dollars off what was actually needed in year 2004-5.2. Other ways they have used data that might skew the results:

• I do not think they have not included the children generated by the 99 half acre lots that are “previously approved” which they plan to develop (there are about 9 houses currently there, but they can build 90 more). Also they have used the .55 as the multiplier for school children per primary home. That number is accurate according to census and other data for existing primary homes. However both the studies the school commissioned by Paul Seversky and the fiscal impact study “Impacts of Growth in Pine Plains” completed by Phillips Preiss Shapiro in May of 2006 used a multiplier of .71 because that is the number of school children per new home in the area. In fact, given the number of bedrooms in the planned houses it might be more appropriate to estimate numbers of children based on numbers of bedrooms. And note that James Sheldon in his remarks in the recent hearing uses a number of 1.35 child/new home based on the numbers per new home in the Arlington School District farther south in Dutchess County (see his remarks in “Durst Watch (3) “By the Numbers” posted on his website: www.littletownviews.com).

II. Municipal Costs (including fire district):

Looking at the analysis for Pine Plains the Carvel DEIS also uses a five year trailing average “to even out the blips.” When you look at table 14.31 on page 14-57 you see the expenditures for years 2001 through 2005 and here you do see blips, especially in 2002, which was higher than the other years by more than $200,000. However there are two small footnotes that say the 2004 total is the town budget (i.e. not actual expenditures) and the 2005 total is a “projected expenditure from the 2005 budget.” In fact the actual expenditures for those 2 years were substantially higher (more than $400,000 higher in 2004 and just under $400,000 higher in 2005). Thus the baseline
average municipal expenses they base their calculations on ($1,408,761) should have been substantially higher, with the actual 5 year average being $1,573,582. If they had used the actual 2005 figure it would be $1,849,127.

III. Related to highway costs:

1. In reviewing Chapter 14 (see pp-182-183) although Carvel/Durst acknowledge that 10.2 miles of roadway (a 26% increase) will need to be built and therefore plowed, swept and maintained; they say the resultant increase in the Pine Plains highway budget under the proposed action (i.e. mostly second home scenario) will only need to increase staff by 8.2 % or .37f.t.e. and the budget would only increase by $44,914. They give the baseline budget as $546,250. Thus the resulting budget would be $591,164.
However, under the mostly primary home scenario they say under their comparison of the highway budgets of other towns the size of the projected population of Pine Plains in year 10 the budget would be $1,146,379. They say the department would have to increase by 66%. Under just a percentage increase of the budget that falls between 26% and 66% would give a range of increase of $144,721 and $360,525 and added to the current budget of $546,250 would result in a projected budget of between $690,971 and $906,775. Either way you are talking about real money. But, don’t you have to plow, sweep and maintain whether most of the residents are part time or
full time? I realize the wear and tear might be less with a lot of part timers, but most of the expenses would be the same, wouldn’t they? So it seems to me that the higher estimates would have to replace the $591,164 number even in the part time scenario.”

2. Also even their estimates about highway costs in the impacts section of the DEIS do not agree with their estimate based on an interview with the Highway Superintendent discussed in the Mitigation section on page 14-203 where the give a budget figure for the Highway Department of $1,116,953 for the preferred scenario (see the third line on that page compared to what is said on page 14-182). It looks as if there might have been further discussion about additional equipment the Highway Department is saying they need. That might in fact be a more realistic estimate than they have in
their impacts section, but this discrepancy needs to be reconciled. I think there are similar discrepancies in their estimates for the full time scenario in the two sections (see also p.14-203 for the full time costs in the mitigation section and compare them to the costs discussed on page 14-182 and following pages).

IV. Additional comments related to police and fire:

1. In their analyses about both the police department and the fire departments in Pine Plains, similar to the way they analyzed the costs for the fire department, they give much lower figures for their “preferred scenario,” which I question. In fact, empty houses can burn and empty houses can be broken into. The local paper, the Pine Plains Register Herald just this week contains an editorial and both papers contain articles about recent rashes of burglary in the area. The editorial says that burglary is the most common crime in Dutchess County. While I’m not in favor of gated communities, at least in a gated community you have some idea who is coming into the area. This development will have easy access to a highway and enterprising thieves could rob a few of these high end unoccupied houses and be well on their way before any alarm is sounded. It seems that the police department will have to do much more frequent patrols of the area. The only way they can do that is increase staffing even in the part time scenario. Of course, if Durst really wanted to mitigate the impacts this would impose on the town, the development could commit to hiring their own security
force. The same kinds of issues apply to the fire department. Lightning strikes could start a fire on a street with unoccupied houses and the fire might be quite advanced before anyone called it in.

V. Mitigation:

I thought that mitigation in SEQRA related to things the developer can do to mitigate the impacts caused by his development, but over and over in the fiscal impact chapter the mitigation suggested is either the town can raise bonds to cover costs (which will result in an increase in taxes for all residents) or the allocation in the budget of moneys per each department can re reallocated; i.e. take some from one department and give it to another. I think that is unacceptable (rob Peter to pay Paul).

VI. Marketing Plan:

The Marketing Plan was developed in the height of a very strong real estate market which has since sunk to lows not seen for many years. Large farms are still selling to wealthy New Yorkers for high prices, but otherwise the market has largely dried up. My real estate friends say that only 20 houses in Pine Plains were sold in the last year. The initial market analysis looked at the history of sales in the area and at the potential population of “uber affluent” in the greater NY metro area who might be at the age and income level that they would be looking for a high end country home.
However it was deficient in that it did not take in to account the other similar developments currently on the drawing boards in near by towns (just look at Darryl Gangloff’s article on Carvel and the three other golf developments in the current issue of Dutchess Magazine). In addition to golf developments, there are other developments, such as Depot Hill (122 single family homes and 16 town houses) in Amenia that are planned around horse farms. If you look at the last page of the Marketing study there are three conditions under which their consultant says the predicted results will no longer be reliable: if the economy turns sour, if the housing
market has a downturn and if there are competitive developments aimed at the
same market in the area. Well, all three of these issues have now come to
pass.

“In this project’s current form, using the adjective “green” is nothing more than putting the proverbial ’spats on a pig’. We are hopeful that the project sponsor, with its acknowledged urban record of implementing exemplary green strategies in their projects, will, in good conscience, redesign Carvel Property Development as a true model of sustainable development, a character-filled community within which residents will be inspired to live, and Pine Plains will be proud to welcome.“

Download the PDF: County Planning Review of Durst Development

Poughkeepsie Journal Article

John Lyons, an attorney with Grant and Lyons; George Janes, a visual impact expert at the Environmental Simulation Center in New York City; and Lisa Nagle, a planner based in Saratoga Springs, have each submitted letters to the Pine Plains Planning Board questioning the assumptions and methodology behind the document and urging the board to delay any decision on completeness until the flaws are corrected.
According to Mr. Lyons, “The defects…unless corrected…will undermine the integrity of the forthcoming substantive public comment,” a reference to the hearings, required under SEQRA, at which the Planning Board and the developer receive feedback from the public.

The Environmental Simulation Center provided a letter to the Planning Board offering a critique of the Proposed Draft Environmental Impact Statement, stating that the visual impact of the proposed Durst/Carvel development “cannot be accurately described using materials published in the PDEIS.”

In his 16-page letter, Mr. Janes details flaws in the methods and assumptions used in Chapter 7 of the DEIS, which deals with the visual impacts of the proposed 1,000-home development. He cites several failures on the part of the developer to show “worse case scenarios,” as required by SEQRA, including photo simulations that were created using the wrong type of camera lenses and fail to include driveways and lawns. The effect was to lessen the true impact of the development on the viewscape.

Lisa Nagle’s letter highlighted a host of flaws in the document, including its failure to adequately address the fiscal impacts of the attached and semi-attached residential units and, most importantly, its failure to reconcile the seeming contradiction between the scale and layout of the development with the goals outlined in the Town Comprehensive Plan, which, among other things, cites an almost universal desire among residents that the town retain its rural character (the Durst/Carvel development, if approved, would nearly double the size of Pine Plains).

Mr. Lyons concludes his letter by urging the Planning Board to avoid needlessly rushing to a decision, despite the pressure it may be feeling from the applicant. “Don’t let the tail wag the dog by curtailing your completeness review due to time concerns.”

Links:

John Lyons Overview of PDEIS Critiques.
George Janes’ Assessment of the PDEIS Visual Impact Study
Lisa Nagle’s Assessment of the DPDEIS
Becky Thornton’s Letter Critiquing Carvel as a “Green Development”Fiscal Impact Study