Town Board Joint Meeting – March 2018

The Town of Rochester and Town of Wawarsing held a joint meeting on March 13, 2018 at 5:30pm at the Kerhonkson Firehouse regarding the Natural Heritage Plan.
PRESENT:
Supervisor Baden Councilwoman Haugen-Depuy Councilman Hewitt
Town Clerk Gundberg

ABSENT:
Councilman Drabkin Councilwoman Fornino

TOWN OF WAWARSING:

PRESENT:
Supervisor Houck Councilman Bradley Councilman Buchwalter
Town Clerk Noval

Town of Wawarsing Supervisor Houck called the meeting to order and led in the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag.

PRESENTERS OF THE NATURAL HERITAGE PLAN/ OPEN SPACE PLAN:

John Mickelson Geospatial & Ecological Services
David Church, AICP, consultant land use planner

John Mickelson gave information and goals of the project;

The Town of Rochester in partnership with the Town of Wawarsing completed an Intermunicipal Open Space/ Natural Heritage Plan Project.

John Mickelson gave a background of the project;

The project began August of 2016 and was funded in part by a grant from the New York State Environmental Protection Fund through the Hudson River Estuary Program of New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. What originally started as a 9 month project has turned out to be almost a 2 year process.

A Central Project Team consisting of 8 people; 3 members from each Town, in partnership with two hired consultants, John Mickelson, & David Church, along with both Environmental Conservation Commissions participated fully.

Both Towns previously had natural resource inventories and formal open space inventories cataloging valuable assets of resources and locations.

The committee was asked what assets do they have and how do they want to protect it? If you had to protect one thing above another what would it look like or if it only could be three things what three things would it be? It was discussed to enact some kind of program that in 100 years the people will remember.

The committee took both Towns open space inventories and looked at the broadest topics possible. They looked at assets of resources they would want to protect both individually and collectively. These assets consisted of ecological, hydrological, agriculture, recreation, scenic, culture & historic resources.

The committee looked at everything possible from Honk Lake to a berry patch, to large complex systems that span entire regions such as Rondout Creek or the scenic ridge top.

The committee started refining the topics through ranking exercises. Once categorizing and prioritizing each topic, site features such as the forest corridor that connects the Catskills ecosystem with the Shawangunks, Colony farm, the ridge tops, wetlands, D & H Canal, O&W Rail Trail & the greenway corridor were defined as shared resource plans.

The idea was to create a referenced resourced library and make plans of how the Towns can work as partners to better protect important features, resources and places that they share in common as well as how they can individually address their own unique assets.

The ultimate goal of the Committee’s plan was to take the information collected and science based data and integrate the ideas with each Town’s Comprehensive plans and to act as an addendum to each plan.

Currently both Towns have solid based zoning laws and similar comprehensive plans that reinforces what the committee put together and the maps bring it all together.

The plan has proposed documents with a series of recommended actions.

Rochester’s Plan: Natural Heritage Plan
Wawarsing’s Plan: Open Space Plan

Two separate plans that accomplished similar things.

PUBLIC COMMENTS:

Laura Finestone stated, “ we take for granted our open space, waterways, watersheds, our trees and view sheds. It is not necessarily the case that it will always be this way. If we don’t do something to protect it, it will go away and that’s what brought the committee and people here together. Particularly to those of us that are more native, it means a lot even though we always thought it will always be this way, but it won’t always be this way unless we protect it.”

One resident thanked the committee specifically in regards to water resources.

Supervisor Baden for Town of Rochester thanked Larry Dewitt for all his efforts writing the joint grant and he is the reason the NYS DEC gave $ 50,000.00, so thank you for your time and energy!! At the end of the day we received $ 60,000.00 worth of work and each Town paid
$ 5,000.00.

Councilman Hewitt for Town of Rochester thanked Laura Finestone for spear heading this project and her Dad Max Finestone who brought Chris into the process in 2004 when the natural resource inventory was started. “It’s been a pleasure serving with them all these years on the ECC. The document is comprehensive, it’s in depth and formative and he is excited about moving forward.”

Supervisor Baden stated, “our current zoning laws do a pretty good job enforcing this plan it’s a good base to start from. The mapping John has produced is amazing because many of the things you look at now you think I understand why we have that zoning law. When you look at the connection between the Shawangunks and the Catskills it leaps off the page at you that the Colony Farm is the connection. John has been working on this for years it’s really important to have the connection of the two mountain ranges in our valley. I think this plan will be the final thing to pull everything together and help us move forward.”

Councilman Bradley stated, “ When you look at the water resources on the map, you can see how our towns were sculptured by the glaciers. It’s amazing what we have here and the scenic beauty and we need to market ourselves better and get more people to come here.”

Larry Dewitt asked the consultants if they see anything that looks like further joint action between the joint towns?

David Church stated, “the Rondout watershed. There’s opportunities to get additional grants.”

One resident asked how would the rail trail work with having the trail going through private property?

Supervisor Baden stated, “there is a couple ways; an easement, purchase of property, a formal agreement. A bigger part of the puzzle is access points. We can get easements of land but access can be difficult. Town of Marbletown had success with land swap of a neighboring land owner.”

One resident asked what would be the benefits of the voting status for the Environmental Conservation Commission?

Laura Finestone stated, “It wouldn’t be voting status it would be for when proposals come before the Town Planning Board it will be required to go to the Environmental Conservation Board so we can give feedback. It’s still an advisory plan

ADJOURNMENT:

A Motion was made by Councilman Bradley to adjourn the meeting at 7:06pm.
Second: Councilman Hewitt

Motion carried

RESPECFULLY SUBMITTED,

KATHLEEN A. GUNDBERG
TOWN CLERK