Redraft of zoning laws put before board

PINE PLAINS — Consultants to the town presented a second draft of the proposed zoning laws to the Town Board last Thursday evening, Dec. 18, at the board’s meeting.

Warren Replansky and Bonnie Franson represented the four consultants who have been working on redrafting zoning law since the first draft was presented in 2007. The initial document was written by the town’s Zoning Commission, which has since disbanded.

The document is still technically intra-agency, which means that it is not available for public viewing. As town Supervisor Gregg Pulver said before the presentation began, the evening’s meeting marked the first time the board had seen the revised document, and public comments on the law would not be taken that evening. He added that there would need to be a period of time for the board to closely examine the draft before further questions at a later board meeting.

"The purpose of tonight," Replansky reiterated, "is to present the document in its current state, and to help the board understand what changes have been made."

Replansky said the consultants felt the law needed a fresh look, which he said is not an uncommon practice, and the consulting team went through the initial draft page by page. While there was not always a total consensus, some difficult issues had been resolved in the process.

The ultimate decision to adopt the law is in the hands of the Town Board, and the draft presented last Thursday, or any subsequent draft written by the consultants, is merely a set of guidelines.

Before the document can be adopted as law, it will be subject to a State Environmental Quality Review (SEQR). While a site-specific project (Amenia’s Silo Ridge project for example) requires an Environmental Impact Statement(EIS), when working with a comprehensive plan, like Pine Plains’ zoning law, a different EIS is required: a Generic Environmental Impact Statement(GEIS).

"You have to try to anticipate the potential impact, which is a much more difficult process," explained Replansky.

The process of creating a GEIS follows the same procedural steps as an EIS. A draft (DGEIS) is produced, which is subject to public hearings as part of working toward a final (FGEIS) document. There will then be additional public hearings before the town board issues a Findings Statement, which would explain that all environmental impacts were mitigated to the fullest extent possible. The board would then vote on the adoption of the law.

During Thursday’s meeting the two consultants went through the large document article by article (there are 18 in all), and highlighted the significant changes from the first draft.

"I don’t think we’ve done any violence to what the Zoning Commission had done," Replansky said in reply to the major changes. Franson elaborated that many of the changes were simply to "reorganize, reformat and streamline regulation."

After the document was looked through, Replansky said the board’s next goals should be to read it more thoroughly and to e-mail any questions to the consultants between now and the Jan. 8 meeting, when issues can be resolved and a final document could be produced in time for the Jan. 22 meeting.