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.
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.
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