Double-Edged Sword
The reality of Shandaken politics is that the latest Comprehensive Plan now moving at hyperspeed through its approval process will probably be adopted, and soon. When it is, it won’t be the end of the world for anyone, nor will it change anyone’s life for the better. What it is likely to do unfortunately, is to help insure that our town’s political polarization will continue indefinitely into the future, with results no one can foresee, and might include the exact opposite outcome its drafters may be hoping for.
The preponderance of what’s in the plan is good and we’re not seeking to detract from its strong points. It’s well organized, simple, and readily understandable and it is comprehensive in terms of what it looks at. But our concerns aren’t so much about what’s in the plan, they’re about what’s intentionally left out. And because of those omissions, we’re concerned that by adopting it, we’re setting ourselves up for huge problems in the future that the process and the document are intended to try and solve now, at this stage, but clearly don’t.
Sometimes the devil’s in the details, we think this time it’s in the lack of them. Perhaps that’s the plan’s strength in terms of public acceptability, but it’s definitely its main weakness as a planning tool. It contains many universally agreeable statements like “a coherent and sustainable approach to development should be implemented …” What it doesn’t do very well is say how we’re actually going to do that. So what that does is take all the really tough planning and zoning questions, and answers them by saying sometime in the future, some other town-appointed committee will figure those out. That’s the problem in a nutshell. Because who‘ll solve these problems and when comes right back to committees not yet appointed, or in the case of say the current Zoning Revision Committee, not really functional. There’s a committee that can’t even manage to meet regularly, and the idea that one day they’ll step up to guide the town through its thorniest planning problems isn’t terribly credible. But committees like that aren’t the people who should be figuring out the town’s future direction. That should be done by our Comp Planners, and they’re taking a pass on the tough issues in the interest of avoiding controversy and getting some kind of plan adopted, even if it’s less than what we really need.
No one knows who’ll control Shandaken’s town board in the future. If you’re comfortable with the idea that whoever that turns out to be will be writing future zoning, then you should be comfortable with adopting the plan as is, or with only minor changes. It might be the people currently in power or it might not, but if we adopt a plan that needs to go right back to the drawing boards for implementation, then whoever’s got 3 votes on the town board will be writing that code. That’s why adopting what we see as an unfinished document is a double-edged sword, it might cut the way you want in the future, it might cut the other way.
What we’d like to see is for the current committee and its well-paid consultants to add enough specificity to the plan so it’s actually finished. Where development on “mountainsides” is referenced, define what slopes that means, so everyone will understand if their land’s a “mountainside” or not, and whoever’s writing zoning in the future can take that into account. If development is linked to the availability of water - an excellent idea – just say how much water that means for a 1-family house, a commercial project, whatever. These aren’t laws we’re talking about, they’re guidelines. But without them, the plan’s almost without meaning. Sure there’s work involved, but we think the committee should just stay with it till it’s done. We’d like to see a Comp Plan adopted, but not one that raises more uncertainty than it puts to rest, or sets the town up for ongoing conflict in the future. This one in its current form, we believe, does that.
We began by saying we thought the current “Stantec” will be soon adopted. That’s because regardless of what it says or doesn’t, there’s only one group in town that actually NEEDS a Comp Plan adopted quickly, and that group does have 3 town board votes they can count on. For any who may have forgotten who or why that is it’s simple: Under SEQRA and under town law, no project can be approved by the planning board if it’s not in conformity with an adopted Comp Plan. If there’s no plan adopted it’s not an issue, but if there is a plan it’s a huge issue.
That’s the reason people have been fighting over specific words and phrases in Shandaken’s Comp Plans for five years, and anyone who thinks it’s ever really been about anything else has probably been snookered somewhere along the line. It’s always been about whether the town is going to try and help pave the way for the Really Big Project, by adopting a plan that allows its sponsor to claim “conformity” with it. As it happens, the new plan serves this function nicely, allowing the developer to amend its SEQRA filings by notifying DEC that its project is in conformity with the town’s new Comprehensive Plan.
We’re not saying that’s good or bad, or that the plan should or shouldn’t address any particular issue that might bear in some way on the town’s really big project. We are saying Shandaken’s need for the best possible plan is frankly more important than a developer’s need for us to adopt some plan, quickly. We’re also saying the people of Shandaken and not just four appointees, still need to be heard on what they want for the future, and an open, transparent, and public comp planning process is how it’s done. Yes, we’ve learned that people sometimes stand up and yell at each other when that happens. We’ve also learned that actually works at making draft language reflect what people want. This is democracy folks, use it or lose it. The public hearing is at 7:00PM, Wednesday April 6 at the Phoenicia School. We think it’s in everyone’s interest to attend.