Pine Plains zones in on land use regulations

PINE PLAINS — "I think it was excruciatingly slow," Pine Plains town Supervisor Gregg Pulver said. "But we were very careful."

"I think it’s been terrible," said resident Jane Water. "It’s been slow, uncomfortably slow, and it’s obviously caused a lot of consternation in town."

"It’s been a long process," said town Councilman Rick Butler. "This all really started in early 2000."

"It’s been a long time coming," said Jim Mara, a member of the steering committee of Pine Plains United, a grass roots organization dedicated to protecting the town’s future growth.

Mara and all the others were referring to the just completed zoning document, which was presented to the Town Board last Thursday evening at a special meeting at Town Hall; the proposed ordinance is also available to the public on line at the town’s Web site, pineplains-ny.gov, as well as in hard copy format at the Town Hall, for a nominal fee to cover the cost of printing.

The special meeting was specifically for the purpose of "accepting as complete and ready for public review the Draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement (DGEIS) prepared in conjunction with the Pine Plains Zoning Law, Proposed Local Law No. 1 of 2009 and for purposes of scheduling a date for a combined public hearing on the local law and DGEIS," according to the town’s Web site.

There was no public comment at the meeting, although a fair number of residents attended. The Town Board, along with Attorney to the Town Warren Replansky (who reviewed and finalized the zoning laws along with consultant Bonnie Franson), set the time and dates for the upcoming public hearings. It was agreed upon by resolution that there will be two public hearings; the first will be on Saturday, April 18, at 9:30 a.m. and the second will be on Wednesday, April 22, at 7 p.m. Both hearings will be held at the Lions Club Pavilion on Beach Road. An alternate date for the Wednesday meeting was set for Wednesday, April 29, at 7 p.m.

Replansky said public comments will likely be accepted for 10 days after the close of the public hearing, and that deadline can be extended if necessary.

The zoning document was originally created by the town’s Zoning Commission, which was formed specifically for that purpose; it disbanded after the draft zoning ordinance was completed. Resident Sarah Jones had nothing but praise for the commission’s work.

"The Zoning Commission did a tremendous job because that whole process has been open at every turn," she said. "There was not even one surprise."

After the commission’s work was done, the proposal was then submitted to the town. Eventually it was handed over to Replansky and Franson, both of whom have been working steadily on the document for the past number of months. The main changes, according to the supervisor, were basic.

"I think we changed it from the original draft from the Zoning Commission’s version in that we tried to make it easier to read and easier to enforce," Pulver said. "That was the major change to the document."

Pine Plains is the only town in Dutchess County without zoning. The Town Board agreed there’s a simple objective in adopting zoning sooner, rather than later.

"The existence of zoning will preclude open-ended development only controlled by site plan review, which does not address density," Butler said.

"I think our main goal, overwhelmingly, is to maintain the rural character in Pine Plains," Pulver said. "We’re trying to do that but at the same time note the uniqueness that allows people to subdivide their property at least once. We think we’ve done a good job balancing our needs for control with property rights on the other side of the coin. I think it’s a fairly balanced zoning document. If people take the time to read it and understand it they’ll agree."

"I think we tried very hard to provide adequate protection for the community as a whole," Butler said. "We worked very hard to make sure bulk regulations [are even] across the line, so there’s no, ‘My neighbor can do this and I can’t do that.’"

"We bent over backwards to address all concerns," town Councilman George Keeler said. "A lot of work and an awful lot of people put an awful lot of time into this."

"We think that document is a good document," Pulver said. "It allows for growth and for businesses to expand. It really is a unique law that allows for a lot of things normal zoning documents don’t have. We kept zoning down to a minimum to make sure that whatever gets developed in town takes into consideration what Pine Plains has become."