Comprehensive Plan
Chairs: Chuck
Brassard (851-7746)
and Chris
Post (851-5950)
Secretary: Tonya Stockman
Members: John Blaauw, Michael Brandon, Jay Brousseau, William First,
John Lee, Gretchen Stearns, and Judy Zink
In April 2005, in response to citizen pressure and particularly the efforts of the Claverack Democratic Committee's Comprehensive Plan Task Force, the town board finally established a Comprehensive Plan Committee to update the antiquated 1970 town master plan. Also in response to citizen pressure, in April of 2004 Claverack finally joined Greenway, becoming one of the last towns in Columbia County to take that very logical step.
The committee has been soliciting ideas and opinions of all townspeople, via workshops and a written survey that was mailed to residents and landowners. The mailing list for that survey was derived from the list of registered voters and from a list of property owners, and thus unfortunately may have missed some households (e.g., renters not registered to vote). Anyone else who wanted a survey to complete was invited to pick one up at Town Hall or at either of the libraries (Claverack or Philmont), or to download one at townofclaverack.com, the town's website. (Note that the committee's deadline for returning surveys was February 18, 2006.)
In May, the survey results were tabulated and presented to the town. They can be viewed or downloaded at the town's website. They are also viewable and downloadable below, for your convenience, and particularly in case you are not able to view the town's website with your computer.
Download pdf map of Columbia County (85K)
Comprehensive Plan Committee townwide survey results (pdf)
Demographic Profile (239k)
Population Pyramids (118k)
Land Use Tables (127k)
Results Tables (404K)
Open-ended Questions (1.58 MB)
Comprehensive Plan Committee minutes and unofficial notes:
Of interest:
Commentary:
A sick desire
Oil realities lost in denial, dependency
By JAMES HOWARD KUNSTLER
First published: Sunday, December 11, 2005
"Syriana," the new George Clooney movie about political hugger-mugger in a Middle East oil kingdom, doesn't offer an enhanced understanding of the global oil predicament.
It's a dark, brooding and impressively restrained story with no car chases, few explosions and barely a bullet flying. There are several layers of intense paranoia that seem to suggest almost no one in authority here in America can be trusted about anything. A foreign culture is depicted as (to crib a phrase from Winston Churchill) a riddle, wrapped in an enigma, wrapped in a hairball.
In the movie's most terrifying scene, they'll see Clooney's character, Bob, a washed-up CIA agent, receive an extremely severe manicure, so to speak, from an al-Qaida type sadist.
But they won't get any clear ideas about the implications of our sick dependency on Middle Eastern oil for life in United States. One of the unfortunate results of this otherwise not-stupid movie, is that it will cater to the kind of paranoid fantasies that will be least helpful for Americans facing a bewildering future and needing desperately to take measured collective action to preserve living standards. Sure, there is plenty of greed and bad faith in the big leagues of geopolitics and corporate life. But the global energy predicament is foremost a geological problem.
Despite the claims of those who believe that the Earth has a creamy nougat center of oil, the supply of this critical resource is actually finite. We are at a very dicey moment in our brief history with it. There is good reason to believe that the world is now passing over the tippy-top of its all-time peak oil production and starting down the remorseless slope of irreversible depletion. Meanwhile, discovery of new oil has been practically nil so far in the 21st century, and you can't produce oil that hasn't been discovered. The shorthand for this conundrum is Peak Oil, a subject lately growing in the public's awareness.
The great problem, therefore, is not that we are immediately running out of oil, because at peak there will still be a lot left. The problem is that the first half was the lightest, sweetest crude in the easiest-to-reach places, including Texas. It was cheap to get and refine. The remaining half of the oil supply is mostly harder-to-refine heavy, sour crude, or tar sands, or oil shales (which aren't even composed of oil, but of an uncooked organic precursor called kerogen), and these things can now only be gotten in forbidding Arctic terrains, Amazonian jungles, deep under the sea or in unfriendly countries.
The remaining oil is distributed inequitably around the world. More than two-thirds belongs to the nations of the Middle East. It does not come cheap, either in monetary terms or in geopolitical costs.
"Syriana" is about some of those geopolitical costs. The movie is loosely based on Robert Baer's gripping 2004 account, "Sleeping With the Devil," of his career as a CIA agent operating in Saudi Arabia, and much of the book is devoted to the stupendous corruption, greed and incompetence of the al Saud royal family -- as well as the behind-the-scenes string-pulling by Anglo-American interests scheming relentlessly to do what's necessary to keep the oil flowing.
Flowing into American gas tanks, that And that is the more precise context of the problem we face over Peak Oil: We have poured our postwar national wealth into an easy motoring suburban living arrangement that cannot possibly operate without continued reliable supplies of cheap oil. Perhaps even worse, our economy has shifted from manufacturing to sprawl-building (otherwise known as the housing bubble). Having made such massive misinvestments in the infrastructure for a way of life with no future, we are trapped in a deadly psychology of previous investment that prevents us from even thinking we can do things differently.
This was all neatly encapsulated by the remark widely attributed to Vice President Dick Cheney that "the American way of life is non-negotiable." Whatever you think of that, it is probably an accurate representation of how most Americans feel -- that we are entitled to 3,500-square-foot houses, all the cheap gasoline we can burn and easy credit, because we hold the torch of freedom as an example to the world.
Thus, we are dismayed when other people in the world scoff at our torch-bearing while they blow up our soldiers, because they know -- as do the characters in "Syriana" -- that it's all basically about our desperate addiction to their oil. It would be unfortunate if our dismay turned into unbridled wrath, because that kind of political rage is just as likely to turn inward.
There is a whole set of intelligent responses to America's oil predicament that we ought to be talking about now. These range from restoring a passenger rail system, to supporting local agriculture in earnest, to rebuilding local networks of retail trade and economic interdependency when the Big Boxes die of oil starvation, to setting legal limits on more suburban sprawl. These are the kinds of things that will help us through the post-cheap oil world we are entering. The temptations of paranoia will only make things worse.
Howard Kunstler is the author of "The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-first Century." He was the movie critic for the Albany Knickerbocker News in 1973-1974.
Times Union
Commentary, Paul Bray: Past offers lessons in city planning
First published: Sunday, November 13, 2005
European settlement of the New World started on the right foot when it came to city and town planning and design.
In 1573, more than a quarter century before Henry Hudson set foot on the shoreline where Albany is now, King Phillip II of Spain prescribed the Law of the Indies to direct the development of towns in the Spanish colonies elsewhere in the New World.
The Spanish laws guided the colonists in selection of suitable sites for towns and their layout, considering social, environmental and economic factors. They called for a central plaza that remains a defining feature of many New Mexican cities. Principal streets were to have portals. Polluting sources were to be sited downwind. Provision was to be made for orderly growth.
The original Williamsburg, Va., was laid out under a detailed planning law with the intent to create a town culture in the British colonies. Later, Pierre L'Enfant's grand plan for the capital city of Washington reflected the desire for American cities to be among the best in the world.
Regrettably, American city and town planning and design have a checkered history. As former University at Albany professor John Logan points out in the book "Urban Growth Machine," use of land has been been affected primarily by land's value as a speculative commodity. Community values like protecting the environment or even simply relating one building to another or to the street take second place in land-use decisions.
That explains why Times Union writer Steve Barnes ("Simple walk can be exercise in danger," Oct. 5) had such a hard time walking across Albany Shaker Road from his office to purchase food and why the Harriman state office campus in Albany is functionally inaccessible for public transit and retail except by car.
But city and town planning is undergoing a revival in many places. Communities like Syracuse highlight their comprehensive plan on Web sites. Syracuse's mayor is quoted on the city's Web site as saying that the plan "will knit together" neighborhood and downtown plans and "build consensus on a future vision" to guide policy-making and inform the public and investors.
Locally, Colonie, Guilderland, Bethlehem and Clifton Park have recently done comprehensive plans as they seek to protect farmland and other open space, meet the needs of a changing population -- including people without cars -- and give retail areas more character.
Comprehensive planning starts the discourse within a community and often identifies lofty goals. The rubber meets the road when it comes to implementing the plans. They may require funding for costly infrastructure improvements; prescriptive zoning restrictions that butt up against land owners' and developers' expectations; and advancement of potentially controversial actions like supporting efforts to develop affordable housing and regional arrangements.
Growing suburbs should avoid half measures, like zoning requirements that call for 2- or 3-acre minimum lot sizes for single-family homes or cluster zoning where houses in a subdivision are grouped in smaller lots to set aside acreage for open space. Neither approach creates large enough areas of land for farming or realizing the scenic or ecological values of preserving open space. In addition, they don't offer the mixed uses or density required for a vibrant pedestrian environment.
Hopefully this burst of planning activity will pick up on the desire for well-planned communities from our Colonial heritage and stay the course to fully realize the community building goals that have found their way into plans like the Colonie Comprehensive Plan.
Paul M. Bray is president of the Albany Roundtable civic lunch forum. His e-mail address is secsunday@aol.com.
From Planning Commissioners Journal and Planners Web
Comprehensive Plans: Basics Beyond
Perhaps the single most important function planning commissions have is preparing their community's comprehensive plan. Recognizing this, the Planning Commissioners Journal has published a number of articles focusing on preparing and implementing comprehensive plans—and related topics. Several are by Michael Chandler, long respected for his skill in running planning commissioner training workshops across the country.
The following articles will provide you with useful information and tips. They can be immediately ordered downloaded for per article fees of between $2.00 and $5.25 (depending on the article's length).
Use the links below for more details about each article, including excerpts, before you order.
Ten Steps in Preparing a Comprehensive Plan
Preparing An Implementable Comprehensive Plan
The 21st Century Comprehensive Plan
Diagnosing Your Community Before You Plan
Planning Without a Comprehensive Plan
We've also published many articles dealing with a wide range of zoning issues, including basics of zoning. Most of these are also available to order immediately download. Click here for more details.
Note: Planning Commissioners Journal subscribers receive a 10 percent discount on all back articles ordered. Click here to subscribe to the PCJ.
Comprehensive
plan proposal to be presented at informational meeting
Register-Star, Sunday, June 19, 2005
RHINEBECK -- The proposed comprehensive plan for the town of Rhinebeck will be presented at a public information meeting of the Comprehensive Plan Committee 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at Rhinebeck Town Hall auditorium, 80 E. Market St. in Rhinebeck.
Geared to informing town residents of the key recommendations in the revised plan and answering questions that the audience may have about the plan, the meeting is open to everyone, and all Rhinebeck citizens are encouraged to attend.
"Having worked for nearly three years on creating an innovative plan that addresses the attitudes and reflects the choices of the majority of Rhinebeck residents, the committee looks forward to revealing the tools that we're proposing to accomplish them," said Sally Mazzarella, chair of the Comprehensive Plan Committee. "We learned the preferences and priorities of townspeople through nine visioning sessions and a detailed, townwide survey," she continued, "and over time, the committee will learn whether we have accomplished the goal of helping to create and preserve a Rhinebeck that reflects the way that its residents actually want to live."
Mazzarella went on to say that among the priorities gleaned from the extensive research conducted on residents' attitudes and preferences included (in no particular order of priority): averting sprawl and preserving open space; preventing "big box," franchise and formula businesses, as well as strip development and preserving Rhinebeck village as the town's commercial center; providing diverse housing choices which Rhinebeck's workforce, new workers and fixed income residents can afford; and connecting the town and village with sidewalks and biking trails.
'The plan addresses every aspect of life in the town, including: economic growth; affordable housing; home-based work; agriculture and open space; historic resources; fire districts; water/sewer; transportation; and recreation and cultural resources, among myriad others," explained Mazzarella. "Every suggestion emanating from the community on the entire spectrum of issues has been considered and evaluated against the hopes and dreams of the majority of the community."
Citizens can access a copy of the proposed Plan, as well as survey and visioning session results, the build-out and fiscal analysis material and information on the actual planning process utilized to develop the comprehensive plan on The Rhinebeck Plan Web site at www.TheRhinebeckPlan.org.
Seeing end
of fuelish lifestyle
Jim Kunstler's latest book sees collapse of suburban commutes
By PAUL GRONDAHL, Staff writer, Times Union
First published: Saturday, June 18, 2005
SARATOGA SPRINGS -- On a bookshelf in his living room, above a row of books by his favorite author, Tom McGuane, Jim Kunstler has placed a sticker that reads: "Me & My SUV. Consuming your future to feed my ego."
In the back yard of his house on the city's north side sits Kunstler's Trek 720 mountain bike. He fills its battered green panniers with groceries, books and other provisions purchased on frequent rides around town.
Out front, a four-cylinder '92 Toyota pickup with 90,000 miles is parked.
These details are things a reader might want to know about Kunstler. His latest book, "The Long Emergency," heaps upon gas-guzzling, SUV-owning suburbanites the same caustic criticism as his earlier jeremiads against the junk landscapes of American sprawl.
This time, Kunstler, a satirist and comic novelist, isn't kidding. The tone of his new book is urgent, as the subtitle suggests: "Surviving the End of the Oil Age, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the 21st Century." The book has been among the Top 100 best-sellers on Amazon.com and quickly went into a third printing.
"I'm not trying to be a Boy Scout about this," Kunstler said, as he sipped herbal tea in his back yard and stroked the ears of his dachshund, Sammy, curled up on his lap. "But we are sleepwalking into a bleak future."
Anyone who has winced lately at filling up a gas tank at $2.30-a-gallon has felt the rising distress that Kunstler describes. He writes that the United States passed its peak oil production of 11 million barrels a day in 1970 and production has dropped steadily since. Yet U.S. oil consumption continues to rise and is now at about 20 million barrels a day.
A similar scenario is fast approaching for global oil production, which may have already peaked, or will soon, depending on which geologist you consult. Kunstler wrote "The Long Emergency" as a bike-riding resident of a compact, walkable city with a thriving Main Street marked by local merchants and homegrown products. It's hard to call him hypocritical.
"I feel like I've made choices and taken pains to lead a purposeful life," he said. "I refuse to spend my life in a car, commuting 50 miles from the suburbs to work."
As a result, Kunstler, 56, the author of nine novels and four books of non-fiction, said he never earned more than $10,000 a year writing books until he hit his mid-40s.
He's built a reputation over the past decade for his linked books "The Geography of Nowhere," "Home From Nowhere" and "The City in Mind." He's a speaker on the national circuit and is a Saratoga gadfly who draws attention with Web site rants.
These themes culminate in "The Long Emergency," which has been germinating for more than 30 years -- ever since he reported on the 1973 OPEC oil embargo as a reporter for the Knickerbocker News. "I didn't know much about the geopolitics of oil at that time, but that was clearly a preview of coming attractions," said Kunstler, who left daily journalism in the mid-1970s for Rolling Stone magazine and made the leap to full-time book writing in 1979.
Ignorance is no antidote to the looming crisis. "Many Americans think the Earth has a creamy nougat center of oil," he said. "In fact, the U.S. has about 28 billion barrels of conventional crude left. We use about 7 billion barrels a year. The conclusions ought to be fairly disturbing."
Kunstler argues that the energy crisis will force Americans to abandon suburban and exurban car culture and return to small, traditional Main Street towns and villages. Kunstler portends radically downsized food production, transportation systems, school districts and retail commerce.
"I'm comfortable about facing my own future because I've been preparing for what lies ahead," said Kunstler, whose live-in partner is Sally Eckhoff, a writer.
Kunstler knows censure awaits his book. Publishers Weekly said: "Kunstler's critique of contemporary society is caustic and scintillating as usual, but his prognostications strain credibility."
The author replied: "My book is stimulating a very emotional response. America has poured all its post-war wealth into the easy motoring way of life. And it pains them to think about having to let go of that."
Grondahl can be reached at 454-5623 or by e-mail at pgrondahl@timesunion.com.
WAMC 5.24.05
When You Grow Up
by Assemblyman Patrick Manning
It is common in our society to ask a young child, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” More common is their reply that they just don’t know. Oh, they have their hopes and dreams, but the future seems so far away that an immediate need to plan their whole life seems without purpose. “Let them enjoy today” seems the message sent by society, or at least by grandparents.
I wonder what the answer would be if we asked our communities the same question? Towns and villages in the Hudson Valley and the Berkshires have been able, for generations, to live in relative peace as sprawl and its accompanying congestion, pollution, and higher property taxes plagued those “to the South” who did not plan ahead or ask the simple question, “What do we want to be when we grow up?”
There are many reasons that those below us didn’t plan. Post-World War II growth patterns and the need to accommodate the commuter and his family allowed for unchecked development based on short term need, rather long term livability. As development raced east into Long Island and north to Westchester and Rockland, not much was known about what sprawl would do to the next generation. We now know its ill effects and we now can plan for the time when we grow up.
We need to first come to terms with the fact that development is coming this way. People want to have a piece of what we have. You can’t blame them. Unlike the nondescript farmland of Nassau County, we have a great deal to save for the next generation. Historic sites, battlefields, viewsheds, and some of the most pristine and fertile soils ever tilled in the United States are found in the Hudson Valley.
As oil prices continue to rise, the need to protect these soils that could potentially be our primary food source, will be critical. Couple that with the need to get serious with our water supply and the protection of water resources underneath these soils makes our job even more critical.
So why does it seem that many of our neighbors who have lived here for generations do not see the coming danger? It’s akin to the tale of the frog in the saucepot. It is said that if you take a frog and place it in a saucepot full of boiling water it will jump out to save its life. Put a frog in a pot of cold water and slowly turn up the heat until boiling, the frog will boil to death never realizing that the climate around him has changed. That is why most who speak to me after one of my talks on this subject are recent arrivals from “the south.” Those who have seen the effects of sprawl on the homes they left behind. They are citizen activists less likely to ask for the door to be closed behind them and more likely to be the harbingers of what they left behind.
In our respective communities the planning boards have become more like “lack of planning boards.” By the time a development project is in front of one of these boards, the time to save a unique view or a endangered soil is long past.
Communities who want to grow up the right way need to do two things right away:
1. Plan not only for the potential density allowed on any one property (zoning), but of how the property should be built out. Viewsheds, access and proximity to bodies of water, and protection of soils should be priorities. In essence, the town becomes the planner and developers know, going into a project, what is acceptable development.
2. Provide for a continuing funding source in order to protect those properties that are deemed significant. Wanting to save a neighbor’s farm is one thing. Having the resources to pay for the property when it comes on the market is another. The purchase of development rights or property outright can be expensive. Having a community come up with a set course of action to raise the money will allow them to be pro-active towards land preservation while partnering with the county and state who also have land preservation funding. New York state, with large, but limited, resources of preservation funds look to those who are serious about their future. Money breeds more money.
When we were five or six, maybe we didn’t know what we wanted to be when we grew up. Now as adults we are better suited to make decisions for the next generation. Let’s use the knowledge of what we know doesn’t work and plan now for the generations to come.
I’m Pat Manning.
Town embarks
on update of 1970s-era comprehensive plan
By Kate Kirschenheiter, Register-Star, Tuesday, April 12, 2005
CLAVERACK -- The eagerly awaited appointments to a new Comprehensive Plan Committee were announced at Monday's Town Board meeting, but some residents voiced concerns and raised questions about the qualifications of those selected and how the choices were made.
Seven town residents were selected to make up the committee, which would be responsible for reviewing the old comprehensive plan from the 1970s and recommending what changes and revisions need to be implemented.
The members selected are Gretchen Stearns, Charles Brassard, John Blaauw, John Lee, William First, Chris Post and Caroline Merritt, Supervisor James Keegan announced. The board adopted a resolution establishing the appointed committee.
But before Keegan even announced who would be on the committee, resident Ian Nitschke, who is a vocal participant at Town Board meetings, formally requested that he receive any written or verbal information in terms of what qualifications the appointees had for the positions they had been selected for.
He stressed the importance of the undertaking and how the town was in need of a new comprehensive plan, especially with the increase in development being seen in Claverack. He added that he knew a lot of highly qualified people who had submitted letters to be on the committee and he would be "very disappointed" if they weren't on it.
Another member of the public also spoke on the topic of the committee at the start of the meeting. "I hope the process will be open to the public," he said. "I hope that everyone can sit in on the meetings."
The Town Board readily agreed with this and Councilman Clifford Weigelt acknowledged that there are likely to be many people in the town of Claverack who had expertise to lend to the discussions the committee will be undertaking.
When he made the announcement of the committee members, Keegan also reported to the board and the public that in talking with Greenway officials he learned that they no longer provided facilitators to towns undertaking comprehensive plan revisions.
"They provide technical assistance," he said, "but they don't have someone to run the meetings anymore"
Previously, he said, the suggestion had been made by town residents to take up the offered facilitators at Greenway. He added that once the committee met and became acquainted with one another they would be able to elect a chairman and interview and decide upon a facilitator themselves, though the selection would have to be approved by the board for the later.
Keegan was again asked what qualifications and criteria were used in the selection process, to which he answered that town residents had submitted letters of interest, and the appointments were made from that group of people.
Nitschke was not satisfied with that answer it seemed and again reaffirmed his request for more information and asked that all information be provided to him. He mentioned filing a requestunder the Freedom of Information Law as well.
Discussion on the committee continued and Keegan said that the names of the other applicants who were not selected for the seven committee seats would be made available to the committee, perhaps for use on subcommittees.
Weigelt stressed that no one would be left out who wanted to be involved in the process. "No one who submitted their name will be shut out," he said. "The board may need a subcommittee, and I think there are a lot of knowledgeable people out there that the committee should get input from"
The suggestion was made that there be a board "liaison" who would keep the Town Board updated on the progress of the compre hensive plan committee. Councilman James Van Deusen said he would not be adverse to this position and Weigelt also said he would be happy to do likewise.
Town resident George Rodenhausen suggested that when the committee was in the process of thinking ahead toward the future and making revision suggestions that the members remember to consider keeping affordable housing in the town for future first-time homebuyers.
This is becoming an increasing problem in the county as taxes continue to rise each year without relief in sight.
Town Attorney Robert Fitzsimmons said that there are local laws that govern how this process is undertaken. There will be public hearings in the future and then, after the comments have been heard, the board will have to adopt the Comprehensive Plan and use it to determine necessary zoning changes.
"There are a lot of steps for everyone to be involved with this process," he said. He recommended that the committee enlist the knowledge of Planning Board and Zoning Board of Appeals members when deliberating on the plan as well.
