[Hvcatskillcewg] Subdivisions

Thu Mar 29 13:27:56 PDT 2007

I have a couple of thoughts on this issue.

It seems that there is a great opportunity for County planning to become
involved with the review of the subdivisions.  The 239 review should tie the
conservation areas into the County open space plan (ie Orange County's plan,
as UC does not have one yet).   Local planning board review should also tie
the conservation areas into local open space plans, and perhaps make these 
"conservation lots" contingent upon meeting certain open 
space/habitat/corridor criteria.  The Shawangunk Ridge Biodiv. Partnership 
is working on developing rapid ecological assessment guidelines and 
procedures for some of the ridge towns.  These could easily be applied in 
Orange County.

Regarding stewardship, Lynn's idea for the developer to set aside the
stewardship funds is great.  When you think about it, $10,000 for 
stewardship endowment is small change from the profits of a 10 or 15 lot 
subdivision.

My concern comes down to the monitoring and enforcement.  Who will monitor? 
The Town of Montgomery has recently appointed town personnel to monitor its 
PDR easements, which is great.

However, will a town have the stomach and $$ to enforce an easement?  And, 
as a procedural question, are these article 49 easements, or some other 
easement which is not a conservation easement under Article 49?

Finally, I would be leery of accepting 3rd party enforcement rights on a 
municipal easement without the upfront stewardship endowment.

So, Carissa, I hope your LTA grant comes through so these issues can be 
discussed with the Towns.

Paul Elconin, mid-Hudson Steward
Open Space Institute
79 Mitchell Road
Somers, NY  10589
Ph:  914-276-2618  Fx:  914-276-0422
pelconin at osiny.org
www.osiny.org

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----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Lynn Bowdery" <lebowdery at hotmail.com>
To: <carissa at oclt.org>; <hvcatskillcewg at lists.ltanet.org>
Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 2:24 PM
Subject: RE: [Hvcatskillcewg] Subdivisions

> Hi All-
>
> My town of New Paltz has had several cluster subdivisions in which the
> town has accepted a conservation easement on the land to remain open
> space.  These easements confer no tax benefits to the owners of the
> property unless the tax assessor sees fit to reduce their assessment
> because the land can not be further subdivided.  I have suggested to some
> of the people in town government that they should set up a contractual
> arrangement with the Wallkill Valley Land Trust to prepare the baseline
> documents and do the monitoring for them.  As part of the subdivision
> process, the town can have the developer pay a fee to cover the costs of
> the baseline and contribute to stewardship endowment fund.  So far, we
> haven't heard from the Town, but it would seem like a win-win situation,
> enabling the land trust to strengthen its staffing and the town wouldn't
> have to stretch its employees even more.
>
> I am wondering if there is any qualitative distinction between
> conservation easements held by land trusts and municipalities-- can a
> municipality more easily annul or change an easement it holds?  If they
> fail to adequately protect their easements, do they become invalid?
>
> All for now.
>
> Lynn Bowdery
>
>
>
>
>>From: "Carissa Haberland" <carissa at oclt.org>
>>To: <hvcatskillcewg at lists.ltanet.org>
>>Subject: [Hvcatskillcewg] Subdivisions
>>Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2007 11:41:03 -0400
>>
>>Hello Everyone-
>>
>>Here is a topic for a little coffee talk...
>>
>>Many of the Town Planning Boards are encouraging "conservation
>>subdivisions". To be over simplified, they grant a smaller lot sizes to
>>the
>>developers (higher concentration of homes) if they leave a greater
>>percentage of the parcel undeveloped. In many cases the "open space" of
>>the
>>subdivision is left as a separate parcel in the end of the process. The
>>Land
>>Trust is frequently approached to accept a conservation easement on the
>>"open space", which usually ends up in the ownership of an HOA, or accept
>>the donation of the parcel fee simple. (As a completely unverified and
>>speculative observation, I have  noticed several of these up for tax
>>sale.)
>>
>>Anyway, the Land Trust has made it quite clear that we are not interested
>>in
>>taking on responsibility of what is frequently the scraps of development.
>>We
>>have expressed to Towns and the County that our involvement in any
>>development projects should be up front and our goal is to protect the
>>resources completely, not partially. As a result of the amount of these
>>requests, I am asking that our organization establish a separate set of
>>criteria for conservation subdivision projects that we will participate in
>>but I feel we need to do something more to help out the Towns.
>>
>>I tend to lean toward NOT encouraging Towns to hold easements but with
>>these
>>subdivision situations it does not make sense for us to hold them. I am
>>thinking of encouraging the inclusion of the conserved area into the
>>individual lots rather than keeping it a separate parcel. Is it something
>>you all feel the building departments or other departments of towns would
>>be
>>better able to enforce and maintain if flagged properly?
>>
>>Talk amongst yourselves...
>>
>>Carissa
>>
>>Carissa D. Haberland
>>Director of Stewardship Programs
>>Orange County Land Trust
>>P.O. Box 2442
>>Middletown, NY 10940
>>(845) 343-0840
>>(845) 341-0898 (fax)
>>carissa at oclt.org
>>www.oclt.org <http://www.oclt.org/>
>>
>>
>>P  Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail
>>
>>
>
>
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>
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