Our Sponsors
TaconicArts.com
Interior/Exterior House Painting by someone you can trust.
(845) 554-5119
jeff@taconicarts.com
Brown Ink
Commercial Printing
600 Horsepound Road, Kent Lakes, NY 10512
(845) 225-0177
Email Greg Brown
Joe Greico's
Out On A Limb
All types of tree work, all aspects of lawn maintenance, snow plowing, lot clearing, excavation, retaining walls, stump grinding.
82 Hortontown Rd.
Kent Cliffs, NY 10512
greico@verizon.net
T- (914)224-3049
F- (845)231-0815
Chuckie Goodnight Foundation
To educate children on how to be good stewards of the earth.
Hudson Valley Photo and Video
Photography by Chris Casaburi
(845) 531-2358
Town of Kent Conservation Advisory Committee
Explore the outdoors in the Town of Kent, New York
One Click ButterCutter
The BEST way to handle butter!
A Putnam County Owned Business Enterprise
Google Syndication Google is being boycotted until they reverse their stand on Net Neutrality. See : for More Information
|
August 10, 2009
There has been a change in the Planning Clerk, and a change in the Planning Board agenda. I don’t know if those two changes are interrelated. “Communications” is on the agenda again for 5:30. That means that the Planning Board’s backroom meetings are legally noticed. That is an improvement. However, it does not satisfy the legal requirement that the public be accommodated. At these backroom meetings, the public is generally me, although in the last few months, I haven’t been able to get there. I arrived at 5:45 for this meeting…. and I was not accommodated. If you’ve never been in there, go in and look at the conference room. There are lots of file cabinets, and a large table with 5 chairs. There are 6 members of the Planning Board. There is a planner; there is an engineer; there is a wetlands inspector; there is a clerk; normally, there is an attorney, although not at this meeting. On this agenda, HYH was being discussed, so there was an additional engineer, and an additional planner. The Code Enforcement Officer was present. Does that sound crowded? It was. Isn’t this a little ridiculous? Why do they do [...]
PVPB 2/9/09 I watched the Planning Board meeting. I did not attend.
Someone at the meeting referred to “this plan that we were discussing before the meeting.” That seems to indicate an illegal pre- meeting.
Mr. Zutt read a quote. “A project has been improperly segmented if the segmented project has no independent utility, no life of its own, or is simply illogical if viewed in isolation.” I don’t know what the source was for the quote.
Aside from specific Town Board activity, this relates to two current zoning and planning projects – the YMCA Camp Combe and Rose Hills Cemetery.
Segmentation is a term used when an environmental review is divided into pieces rather than consideration of the impacts of the whole project. It is illegal because one aspect of the project may not have a lot of impact, but when considered in its entirety, the environmental damage might be significant. For example, building one house may not do significant damage, but building five may. So in a subdivision review, all five houses in the project would have to be reviewed and all environmental impacts reviewed and mitigated, rather than looking at them one at a time.
[...]
Putnam Valley Planning Board January 12, 2009
There was a short illegal pre-meeting to discuss the court order on the Simon application, the “minor amendment” on the Brazee site, and some amendments to the Warm resolution, as well as an announcement that there would be an executive session about litigation on White Rock Road, Adorno, and Kisslinger. I don’t know if there is litigation about White Rock Road. It would be better if the pre-discussion was legal and public.
The Board voted in officers – the Toms, Tom Patterson as Vice Chair and Tom Carano as Secretary.
First on the agenda was the Rennalls application, 78 Oscawana Lake Road, a 3 lot subdivision, on for sketch approval. This is an old application. It is an 8.91 acre parcel in an R1 (one acre) zone that would not exist in the new zoning code. It does not conform to the Comprehensive Plan. There is one house on this lot; there are steep slopes and wetlands. The septics would be higher than the houses (doesn’t that sound like fun when the septic backs up). There were two activities of concern on the parcel: filling in of wetlands, and a pipe from [...]
County Legislature – Public Hearing on Agricultural Districts December 29, 2008
Last night’s exercise in futility – I went to the County Legislature’s public hearing on inclusion of two parcels in the County’s Agricultural District.
Putnam Valley has had a lot of trouble with two different parcels alreadywithin the Putnam County Agricultural District. The taxpayers have expended a lot of money in litigation costs, and neither problem has been resolved. The disputes stem entirely as a result of the inclusion of these parcels in the Ag district.
Understand first that the designation of a parcel as part of the ag district does not preserve that land as a farm. It does not preclude the development of that land into a housing subdivision. It does not help the farmer to remain a viable agricultural endeavor. It does not even affect the assessment of the parcel. An agricultural exemption on taxes is entirely separate from this process.
What this designation does do is insure that local zoning codes cannot be enforced by the Town in which the farm is located. That is its purpose.
You might wonder why the legislature would be so deeply committed to this district against the interests [...]
PV Town Board Work Session December 10, 2008 & County Ag District – Physical Services Committee I didn’t attend the Physical Services Committee Tuesday night. While most in the county are focused on the Tilly Foster contract and the CAP lease, my interest in this meeting was the addition of new parcels to the ag district. I skipped it because there don’t seem to be enough legislators willing to listen at the present time.
The ag district has been a real problem for PV and a couple of other towns. It was opposed by 5 out of 6 supervisors at the time it was created. Putnam Valley has been involved in litigation almost since the district’s inception. Enormous resources have been wasted merely because of the creation of this district. The taxpayers deserve better.
Town Board Work Session, December 10, 2008 I did attend Wednesday’s Town Board work session.
Legalizing Recreational Vehicles The Town Board will decide at the next meeting to segment and piecemeal the draft zoning code, finished in August 2007 during the Sam Davis administration. And what is the subject for this momentous event? Upzoning, biodiversity, ridgeline protection? Actions for which the public has waited for [...]
|
Spread the News
Stumble This!
 |
