Woodstock Town Board Meeting, July 15 2008, part two

This article appeared in the Townsman, July 24, 2008 edition

Woodstock, July 15

Councilman Chris Collins' report to the Woodstock town board on his work to update the Woodstock comprehensive plan, a document meant to guide the Town in its land use decisions for the coming years, met with varied responses from fellow board members.

In 1998 the town board appointed a committee to update the Town's comprehensive plan. The comprehensive plan committee, after conducting a survey and holding numerous "fire house" meetings in the several hamlets that were finished by the end of 1999, issued a proposed document in the spring of 2003. Its recommendations included the creation of a planned residential development (PRD) area for extensive housing development including senior and affordable housing west of Plochmann Lane bounded to the north almost as far as Glasco Turnpike and to the south near Mill Hill Road (state route 212), and also the establishment of a much larger light industrial district in the area adjacent the existing Ametek ("Rotron") manufacturing facility on Rte 375. It also made the suggestion that the Town "possibly consider" extending the municipal sewer toward the densely developed parts of Bearsville. Town boards have wrestled with the document since. Since his election to the town board in 2005 Collins has worked to reconcile the document with changing circumstances and opinions.

Earlier this year Collins received town board approval to engage the services of Kathy Daniels, a senior planner from the New York Planning Federation, to review the document and make recommendations with respect to completing an updated plan. In her March 6, 2008 letter to the town board Ms Daniels described the format, structure and organization of the plan as "very good," and felt the Town "would do well to build on this solid foundation."

However, Daniels felt that the plan could be could be "strengthened, generally by adding additional information that was either not originally included, by reorganizing information or by updating information because of the passage of time," reminding the Town that in its completed and adopted state the plan will be "the legal basis for the Town's local land use regulations." It was these deficiencies in the plan that Collins brought up for discussion.

Problems, according to Daniels, start with a lack of a future population projection. "While planners differ on whether to include this, the best plans do. A population projection can give you an idea how many future people and households you're likely planning for. This has an impact on planning not just for future land uses but future infrastructure and services." She recommended projecting a population for about 15 to 20 years out.

The section on housing, "is somewhat weak," according to Daniels. "There is no discussion of the current housing mix in the Town - that is the number of single-family, duplexes, mobile homes, multi-family units there are. This mix should be compared to surrounding communities or the county to see if the Town is providing for its regional fair share of housing needs."

The plan's lack of a section on public services and facilities was "a fairly big omission," according to Daniels, suggesting the plan "consider addressing, if only briefly, schools, libraries, fire, police and ambulance service…" Along this vein, Daniels noted, "I see a later recommendation to 'study available water.' This would be better to do as part of the comprehensive planning process." She thought the plan needed a section on public sewers, with detailed analysis of "plant capacity, current level of use, level of treatment and any issues or problems, including any problem on-lot served areas that you believe should be sewered."

The lack of a population projection made planning for recreation, traffic control, environmental protection, scenic resources, infrastructure and community services difficult, according to Daniels. She also thought that the original survey prepared by the comprehensive plan committee and sent to Woodstock residents in 1998 was "not statistically valid" since it only had a "disappointing" 15% return rate. She attributed the low return "to the overly-long length of the survey," and suggested a better return (35 - 40%) could be obtained by enclosing a stamped, self-addressed envelope and to not include questions that were "leading" and "either too detailed or too generalized to be helpful."

Collins's suggestion to the board that each member take on a particular area of the plan with the aim of addressing Daniels's concerns received differing opinions from the town board. Councilwoman Liz Simonson said, "My first impression is, should we take a ten year old document and try to build on it? I know you disagree with me, Chris [Collins], but this is a lot of work. I lean toward starting over. I question if we should use this [existing proposed plan] to build on."

Councilman Jay Wenk thought the town board should schedule more meetings. "This is an enormous amount of work."

Councilwoman Terrie Rosenblum thought the recent phenomena of high energy costs had to be included in a plan, but also cautioned the board against creating a plan with too much specificity as it would be the legal basis for land use decisions, as stated in Daniels's report.

Supervisor Jeff Moran was supportive of Collins's recommendation, suggesting to the town board "we should build on Chris's work," and promising to schedule the matter for more discussion at the August 12 meeting.