tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5723709701684173708.post3517696766225365303..comments2024-03-28T11:21:19.200-04:00Comments on The Gossips of Rivertown: Prepping for a Conversation about ZoningCarole Osterinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010623982526286408noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5723709701684173708.post-66617686415176892822018-10-08T12:52:51.121-04:002018-10-08T12:52:51.121-04:002.
Incredibly, we still don't have a "co...2.<br /><br />Incredibly, we still don't have a "conservation overlay" for the city's two substantial wetlands. This is no-brainer zoning device which the City's Comprehensive Plan recommended in 2002. Because the Code is not always clear, an overlay would now assist our dim grasp of the otherwise stated purpose of the R-C District. (The greatest drawback of any Zoning Code is that we actually have to read it.)<br /><br />Will the CAC recommend the already-recommended conservation overlay? Doubtful. The history of the overlay was provided in a public comment at the very first CAC meeting in 2014, as was the need for a letter of request to the DEC Division of Water to correct significant errors in the City's SPDES permit (e.g., the permit gives the GPS coordinates of our wastewater treatment plant as being north of Troy). <br /><br />As for the SPDES permit, in 2015 environmentalists from Riverkeeper to Audubon NY to the Alan Devoe Bird Club desperately needed the revised legal status which only the permit corrections could afford. Today, the DEC's policy is unchanged, that the necessary corrections can only follow a "letter of request" which the CAC alone may submit. <br /><br />While the CAC's ineptitude doesn't say much about our concern for clearly stated policies and laws, our laws are only as good as the people willing to honor and enforce them, which is to say City officials and city residents. <br /><br />Considering our multiple failures to defend the existing Code this year alone (see #1 above), committed conservationists will continue to face serious challenges from City officials with or without the introduction of new laws.<br />unheimlichhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00204285837938988668noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5723709701684173708.post-21681628503736754882018-10-08T12:52:39.226-04:002018-10-08T12:52:39.226-04:001.
Going by the Minutes of Hudson's initial p...1.<br /><br />Going by the Minutes of Hudson's initial planners, the Proprietors seemed to agree that "both the look and arrangement of buildings more strongly define a community's character than do the actual uses that take place within those buildings" (quoted from "re:code LA," above). <br /><br />That's not to say that use-based zoning has no application. Imagine a form-based approach to the Recreational Conservation (R-C) District where the arrangement of a proposed industrial road outweighs any question of its use. <br /><br />But wait, this already happened in South Bay two years ago when the City granted permission for alleged "maintenance" to the private causeway-road. Then, after the work encroached more than a quarter-acre into the eastern R-C District, the City never reviewed its permissions protocol which actually grants no role to the Office of Code Enforcement. If the requisite sections of Code had been revisited and understood, last month's resurfacing of the causeway would have gone to the Planning Board first, as obviously intended.<br /><br />Sooner than we expect, the landowner will seek permission from a third authority for a USE variance to enter the R-C District west of Rte. 9-G. This will require an understanding of where the boundaries lie, but asked to clarify the District boundaries more then a year ago the Zoning Board of Appeals still has no idea where they are (and thus no idea about the required use variance). <br /><br />This is the most pressing zoning matter facing Hudson, which most will fail to realize before the next crisis. unheimlichhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00204285837938988668noreply@blogger.com