Annoying Laws

Opinion published in the Townsman April 10, 2008 edition

Oh please, is there anything more annoying than the law? Take Woodstock’s zoning law, for example. The history of this edict dates back a mere 43 years to Woodstock’s 1965 zoning law. Woodstock was among the very first townships in Ulster County to adopt zoning. The town, very Republican in those days, had commissioned earlier that decade what would come to be known as the Brown and Anthony Master Plan. Included in the master plan’s recommendations was creation of a zoning law establishing zoning districts, each with permitted densities and allowable uses compatible with the town’s varying topography and infrastructure. For example, lands with steep slopes and poor percolation were permitted less development than level areas with good percolation (for septic systems). Another big recommendation was to install a sewer system in the village area, something that would not be accomplished for another twenty years. The ink on Brown and Anthony was barely dry before the town board adopted the ’65 zoning law.

One out of two ain’t bad.

At the time, the ’65 zoning law was considered among the more restrictive zoning laws in the region. In the 1980s, when the town got around to sewers, it was decided the old zoning law needed much revision. Based on new studies by Saratoga Associates, and incorporating a soil and water study now commonly referred as the Pennsylvania Report, the ’65 law was repealed, and the 1989 zoning law, which some considered to be far more restrictive than the ’65 law, was adopted.

It’s defenders called it a “living document,” to be changed and amended as time went by and circumstances warranted.

Its detractors, claiming that topography in Woodstock hadn’t changed in ten thousand years, claimed the “living document” would kill the town.

It certainly helped change the town, for better or for worse you can decide. What is not debatable is that over the years some people have cried in frustration over it.

Lately it had been the SAGE people, a group of citizens concerned with the proposed affordable housing project to be accessed by Playhouse Lane. To them it had all rather slipped by that the 1989 zoning law vastly increased the permitted density in the hamlet sewer district. Until 2005, when Rural Ulster Preservation Corporation (RUPCO) made their initial application for 81 (as of this writing down to 63) residential units, no one had any idea that the 1989 zoning law permitted up to a 120 units on the proposed project’s twenty-seven acre site. One very good thing to come out of the RUPCO proposal and the arguments against it is a much better understanding of the status and rights of bog turtles.

But now the big howlers over the ’89 law are some members of the Woodstock town board. Having weathered my own agonies with zoning to build a municipal cell tower, I can sympathize.

Here is the problem.

For years councilwoman Liz Simonson has led the charge for a farmers market in the village. For years she has been advised, “excellent idea. Help find a place for a farmers market.” Chris Collins joined the board in 2006, and now two members of the town board lead the charge.
Several weeks ago in a lovely front-page article in a local paper, happy board members announced their location for a farmers market; it would be in the Houst parking lot facing Maple Lane.

But the annoying zoning law apparently stands in the way.
Section 5Y of the Woodstock zoning law prohibits the “displays of merchandise… between the face of a building or structure and the curb or edge of a public driveway or thoroughfare.” Is there language any more plain than this?

The Ulster County Planning Board, in a letter to the Town dated April 2, 2008, recommended “that an amendment be made to the Zoning Statute to regulate outdoor markets and vending if the Town wishes to distinguish this type of use from other types of outdoor display areas [italics mine].” Until such time, the County recommended, “the proposed use [farmers market] should be denied.”

I guess the language of Section 5Y was plain enough for them.

On April 10 the Woodstock Zoning Board of Appeals, agreeing with the County planning board, denied a request for a variance from Section 5Y. The ZBA determined that the variance, if granted, would create an “undesirable change in the character of the neighborhood…because it would not comply with the intent of the Zoning Law.” It found “safety issues.” It found that the applicant had created their own difficulty when, presumably, they had to have had “constructive knowledge of the Zoning Law.”

I guess the language of Section 5Y was plain enough for them.

So plain that it begs the question; two members of the town board, who incidentally had constituted the town board’s Land Use Subcommittee (one still does), didn’t see any of this coming when they posed for the front-page article in the local paper several weeks ago, and then sent the credulous applicant into the ZBA? I do recall the same issues that would concern the ZBA and the County planning board had also concerned members of the public when this hasty scheme was hatched at a town board meeting not too long ago.

Fortunately for all of Woodstock’s farmers starving for a market for their goods, the town board can still come to their rescue and do just what the Ulster County Planning Board recommended: amend the zoning law. I’ll be the first to tell you that amending the zoning law is a very bothersome process. It involves work. Not as much work as impeaching presidents, ending wars or weighing in on the domestic issues of the People’s Republic of China. So why should anyone worry?

There’s that old gem from Jean Anouilh’s Antigone, “Nobody has a more sacred obligation to obey the law than those who make the law.”

Gosh, how annoying!