Citizens Groups for Smart Growth
by Constance Young

Housing prices are rising and new home permits multiplying in our area of the mid-Hudson Valley. In Red Hook in 2004 the number of permits for new home growth construction was quadruple what it had been a decade earlier, while in Milan and Pine Plains it was more than double. Like hummingbirds to sugar water, big developers are buzzing around Pine Plains, Milan, Red Hook, Kingston, Saugerties and other mid-Hudson Valley communities with hopes of grabbing big bucks for proposed new condominiums, upscale homes, retirement communities, golf courses, hotels and retail businesses. In great swaths of the valley, many over-the-top developments earmark existing rural lands, farms, and river frontage. Thousands of development proposals are now going through the SEQRA (State Environmental Quality Review Act) review process or awaiting other rulings, and concerned citizens are weighing in with their own environmental and quality of life demands.

In response to the threat of suburban sprawl and to preserve rural lands and lifestyle, residents in many communities have banded together to press for "smart growth." Growth is inevitable, proclaim most citizens group members, but the public should have a say in what happens in their own communities and not just cave in to the whims and profits of outside developers. The groups are working with the towns to provide information, help (and to some minds, aggravation). For example, residents and citizens groups have been a great help in recent successes in Red Hook. In May of 2004 a two-year campaign by the citizens group Keep Red Hook Rural (KRHR) for the purchase of development rights for historic farmland culminated in passage of a Farmland Protection Program. KRHR organized activities for almost two years--sponsoring events, creating phone trees, mailing out fliers, sending e-mails--in an effort to personally contact every Red Hook resident. The result: voters approved a $3.5 million bond fund to purchase farmland development rights in a matching grant program by an overwhelming margin of 897 to 186. The Town Board will administer the program, providing up to 50% of the purchase price for lands that meet the program guidelines.

More recently, in an August 2005 public hearing, representatives for the citizens group Red Hook Concerns and other members of the community turned out in such numbers that they were able to change the vote of two Red Hook Town Board members. At stake is the possibility of reclaiming for town use up to 200 acres of prime unused agricultural land owned by Central Hudson. The utility company, which bought the land many decades ago as a pathway for power transmission lines that were never built, had put the land up for sale. When Red Hook's offer of 1.9 million fell $500,000 short, Town Board members were at first divided about whether to use the Town's powers of eminent domain to force the sale. The strong public reaction in favor of purchasing the property--a swath that cuts through Red Hook's famed "bread basket" of major farms--means that the proposal will now go to referendum, which if it passes, will allow Red Hook to purchase at least half the land. Town Supervisor Marirose Blum Bump hopes to gain the entire property, and by doing so to expand five town programs already in place: recreation, trails, open space, agriculture, and water resource preservation.

Successes of Citizens Groups
The most publicized recent success has been the defeat of the Montreal-based St. Lawrence Cement Company's (SLC) proposal to build a $353 million coal-fired cement manufacturing plant near the city of Hudson. The grassroots group Friends of Hudson, which by 2005 had enlisted 4,100 members, was the first of three community groups to be granted legal standing in the case. Two other not-for-profit community groups, the Olana Partnership and Scenic Hudson, also took up the fight. Together the groups used small law firms and public interest lawyers to help them defeat SLC with its $56 million war chest. According to the New York Law Journal, the anti-plant lawyers claim that the successful conclusion to the seven-year SLC battle was the most significant environmental victory since "Storm King," the 1963 fight to prevent Consolidated Edison from building a huge riverfront power plant at Cornwall-on-Hudson. That struggle gave birth to U.S. Environmental law.

Pine Plains, the "Perfect Storm"
The largest proposed development east of the Hudson is the 2,025-acre Carvel Development (formerly called the Hudson Valley Club) proposed by real estate mogul Douglas Durst, president of the Durst Organization. Durst, who also owns major office buildings in New York City, has teamed up with Landmark National, developer and manager of major golf courses. The proposed project, which is on the property formerly owned by Thomas Carvel of ice-cream fame and includes the current public golf course, would create 975 up-scale single family housing units, an extended, private golf course, tennis courts and other homeowner's facilities. About three-fourths of the land is in Pine Plains, and the other fourth in Milan.

Also under consideration by the Pine Plains Planning Board is the 85-acre "Village Green" that is slated to add over 270 to 285 residential units, many of them condominiums above retail spaces, and a 60,000 square foot supermarket to an area just south of the town center. One of the major criticisms of this project is that it would take business and money away from the needy town center, with its historic and dilapidated buildings and unoccupied business spaces. A personal note: My house backs on this proposed project, now a beautiful field with a view of rolling hills and a mountain; the field contains the wellhead area protecting the town's water supply.

Another development proposal in Pine Plains, Parkview Estates, is for a 40-house development on some 29 acres bordering the town's recreation center and just a few yards from the environmentally sensitive Stissing Lake. If all three projects go through as proposed, the number of housing units in Pine Plains will more than double.

Naturally enough, both town officials and citizens in Pine Plains have been unsettled by the proposed changes. In 2004 Pine Plains approved its revised Comprehensive Plan, which clearly expresses the community's desire to preserve beauty and rural character of Pine Plains. In January 2005 Pine Plains United was organized to help protect it "from the adverse effects of unregulated commercial and residential development." According to Plain Speaking, the newsletter of the recently formed group, "Such development will completely alter our landscape, not just visibly, but economically and culturally." PPU currently consists of some 400 members and has a website and an e-mail list-serve to keep the public informed. PPUs members attend all Planning Board and Town Board meetings and conduct community meetings. James Sheldon, a financial analyst, journalist, and member of PPU, claims that if the projects go through, school and property taxes could more than double. (Sheldon's blog, "Views from Gallatin," can be viewed at http://gallatinviews.blogspot.com.)

PPU's second town meeting in late July introduced to the public the group's new consultant attorney, John Lyons of the Rhinebeck law firm Grant & Lyons LLP. Lyons described the SEQRA process and told the audience what they could do make the approval process serve the people's interests as well as those of the developer. He also talked about why the town needs appropriate zoning if its citizens want to exercise more influence over its eventual character. Pine Plains is the only town in Dutchess County that does not have zoning, although last March, in response to the interest of a large segment of Pine Plains residents, the Town Board established a Zoning Commission.

The job of the new seven-member Zoning Commission will be to write the laws that will enforce the Comprehensive Town Plan. That plan proposes creating five districts based on environmental criteria (including Hamlet, Agricultural, and Wellhead areas), and establishing densities for each district. The Town Board will review the Zoning Commission's recommendations and take it to the public for input. Meanwhile the new Zoning Commission has suggested to the Town Board that it institute a moratorium on development until the commission completes its work. In fact, moratoriums on development have been established or are being considered in Hyde Park, Rhinebeck, Plattekill, Milan and Saugerties.

What You Can Do
There are many active citizen groups throughout the area. If a group doesn't exist in your community, members of existing groups will help you start one yourself. There are also many not-for-profit organizations concerned with environmental and other community and development issues that you can consult for help.

In a public meeting Sam Pratt, executive director of Friends of Hudson, told the large assembled audience that Friends of Hudson owed their success to such factors as good research and effective communications. This means having a website and assiduously contacting members and others by e-mail or other means. Pratt also stressed the importance of attending all town meetings, educating the public, and portioning out the work to "task forces."

Some of the Citizens Groups in our Area

Some Proposals Under Review

A few of the proposed developments that worry citizens groups:

• In the Rondout section of Kingston: 2,500 dwellings to house an estimated 6,000 or more residents with commercial and office spaces.
• In Saugerties, on the 840-acre Winston Farm: a 1.2 million square foot resort/casino with a 20,000-seat sports and entertainment arena, 5 garages for 23,000 vehicles, 1 million square feet of retail space, and a 27-hole golf course, to be developed by the Wilmorite Corporation, representing the Seneca-Cayuga Indian tribe.
• In Red Hook: 300 homes on historic farm properties. (Dutchess County is rated as one of the dozen most threatened farming areas in the country.)
• In Hurley: An active adult gated community called "Hidden Forest."
• In Esopus: A 650-unit planned "village."
• In Dover Plains/Wingdale: A "golf course community" called Dover Knolls, on the land surrounding the 80-building former home of the Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center.
• In Pine Plains and Milan: The Hudson Valley Club (Carvel/Durst Project): a total of 2,025 acres to be turned into 975 residential units with a redesigned golf course.
• In Pine Plains: Besides the above, the "Village Green" (270 residential units and retail spaces including a 60,000-square foot supermarket) and Parkview Estates (another 40 homes).
• On the riverfront: Development plans in Pough-keepsie, Lloyd, Fishkill, and Beacon, including another golf course, hotels, restaurants and stores.