A Call To Action Dear Editor: Your paper recently reported on a meeting of the Cochecton Planning Board held on September 28th involving a major subdivision plan for property on New Turnpike Road, where I live. At the risk of being labeled a NIMBY malcontent, I would like to consider what approval of a plan like this mean for our neighborhood, for the town, and arguably for the region. Ours is just one of many local planning boards across the region that are being overwhelmed with new proposals for residential subdivisions. Unfortunately, the boards and the local laws guiding them are not primed to exercise meaningful controls over these proposals. The position adopted by boards, the press and many onlookers has been, "It's going to happen. It can't be stopped." The "it" is meant to refer to subdivision development generally. In our case, the "it" has become attached to a proposal for a centralized colony of 42 homes, to be inserted in the midst of an established but informal community half its size, on a poor, winding road that is far removed from shopping or community services. Such a planning disaster can't be stopped? Why on earth not? It flouts essential planning principles of gradual and proportional growth and population stability, by unduly concentrating population in an area that lacks infrastructure and by radically altering local community character. It fairly guarantees a net loss of revenues, and thus higher taxes for the town, owing in part to the need for high-cost road improvement and maintenance to safely accomodate the added traffic to and from commercial centers. Cochecton has not had the money to even complete the paving of New Turnpike Road, and, by law in New York, the town cannot saddle the owner with any of these costs. Thirdly, the region does not need this housing; it has ample stock in the price bracket the developer anticipates ($250,000) that is now going begging, and nothing on the economic horizon is promising to change that. The pressure for sudden growth is coming from land speculators, and the pressure points are the places they happen to find 'cheap' land for sale. Overreaching projects like the one on New Turnpike Road can be, and must be stopped, without negating reasonably sited, proportional development. If this plan is approved as presented or with minor tinkering, it will establish a gross template that will set up discrimination claims if similar ill-considered plans later presented are denied. The "gold rush" (the developer's words, not mine) will claim more and more large tracts, until the natural, rural character of the place is gone. Of course, the developers and the sellers of the land are upset to hear of opposition to big development plans. Dry your tears. No one in this neck of the woods needs to build a major subdivision in order to derive economic use from his or her land. We, the people who live in this region, are here because of the low density and the natural, rural character that are at risk. And retaining these qualities is a bona fide planning objective recognized in law and recited in some of our town's Master Plans. This plan is a wake-up call to residents of all the towns with inadequate zoning and subdivisions laws like Cochecton's, which feature cluster development as a cure-all congestion and buffering as a solution for the cluttering of the landscape. "Our" developer has presented a cluster plan which meets his needs and on one else's. By crowding his houses on small lots in the field near the road, he can lower his construction costs and still maximize his profits; the conservation easement he has agreed to preserve is to be down the hill and out of sight, to be enjoyed only by repairmen on the Columbia gas line. If the developer agrees to buffer new construction at this site, that will not bring back the scenic vista which now can be enjoyed from the road. Many inappropriate plans, and quite possibly this one, will not be stopped by terrain problems alone, e.g., the perc requirements and net zoning minimums that our laws contain. There need to be measures to identify areas that require preservation and protection, limit increases in housing density over time and to require harmonization with the existing local environments. To protect our rural way of life, local residents will need to get into the fray now, as Cochecton's residents are doing. People must press for changes in the laws and be prepared to stand behind their town boards and planners lest they be sued for resisting assaults upon their hegemony. Grace van Hulsteyn |