[Background: What is a TND?]
To: Members of the Rhinebeck Town Board
Re: Draft Comprehensive Plan
Date: June 19, 2006
The draft Rhinebeck Comprehensive Plan is based upon the assumption that the Town of Rhinebeck is a rural community and that a majority of Rhinebeck residents believe that it should remain a rural community. Economically, Rhinebeck ceased to be a rural community some time ago. Agriculture’s primary contribution to our ‘rural character’ is the visual appeal of open space, low density population distribution, and the lack of public infrastructure (water/sewer) that a rural community has traditionally enjoyed. Our ‘rural character’ is a fortunate by-product of our agricultural origins, and it is this by-product that we currently enjoy and that the Comp. Plan should be seeking to preserve.
In addition, as a community we would like to preserve the natural heritage and resources that the Town still possesses, the biodiversity and the intact habitats biodiversity depends upon. We would like to provide housing opportunities for all segments of our community, recognizing that in a market-based economy, the options for housing compatible with (and viable in) a rural setting are not going to mirror those found in urban and suburban settings.
The draft of the Comprehensive Plan proposes a number of significant changes to the Town’s current zoning in an attempt to meet the goals of rural preservation, natural resource conservation and affordable housing. The overall intent of the Plan is excellent, many of its proposals being both plausible and worth attempting. Others are, in my view, misguided and counterproductive. I have, since their inception, opposed the two proposed TNDs. My opposition stems from my having concluded that the primary justifications given for their inclusion in the Plan, open space preservation and the creation of affordable housing, have never been substantiated. The Plan also emphasizes the importance of preserving both the Village of Rhinebeck and the hamlet of Rhinecliff as Rhinebeck’s community, cultural and economic centers. Creating competing centers (TNDs) is clearly counterproductive to that goal.
To be specific, the Rhinecliff TND is proposed for one of the most costly pieces of property in the Town at this time. There is no infrastructure in place in the Town that can be reliably employed to service this TND which will require public water and sewer. The Village may be able to supply water; it can not supply sewer service. If the proposed spa is built in the Village and the Gardens project is ever completed, what excess water capacity the Village may possess today may not be available tomorrow. When the actual costs of developing the infrastructure needed for the Rhinecliff TND are taken into consideration, it is hard to imagine how any portion will be affordable without offering the developer a generous density bonus.
The requirement for central water and sewer will impact more than the cost of the TND. It will require the expansion of current water facilities (Village water or County water currently waiting at the Hyde Park Town line being the most likely candidates), as well as construction of a new sewer treatment facility. To offset costs of both initial construction and future operation, any new facilities will be built to include a user base greater than that of the proposed TND. An expanding user base will be especially important over time to help off-set the inevitable rise in maintenance and operation costs. With public water and sewer available, the Rhinecliff TND will grow over time. The introduction of public water and sewer in once rural communities often has a tendency to encourage the spread of rampant residential development. The Rhinecliff TND is also located on land adjacent to the last dairy farm in Rhinebeck. If you look across Dutchess County, as housing has consumed inactive farmland, neighboring dairy farms have disappeared and the usual new ‘crop’ is more housing.
Along Route 9 north of the Village, we have businesses such a busy lumber yard and a supermarket, businesses that outgrew the Village. Auto-related businesses have located there, as have a fuel oil depot and a large, retail nursery. All these businesses tend to be noisy, produce odors and are traffic generators. They are where they are because they do not make good neighbors in a residential setting. This is where a residential development, a TND, should be located? The often expressed idea that the TND will ‘refit the strip’ and make it more ‘village-like’ is wishful thinking. A lumber yard is a lumber yard , a supermarket a supermarket and tire and muffler shops will remain tire and muffler shops, noisy, smelly and traffic generators. Unless the intent is to chase these businesses from the Town, the original intent of locating them outside the residential neighborhoods of Rhinebeck should be respected.
The Route 9 TND also raises the issue of viability. There is no infrastructure available to the site and multiple property owners. The Route 9 TND is supposed to be a major contributor to affordable housing in the Town. If its viability is as uncertain as I believe it to be, its contribution to affordable housing is illusory.
The Plan does specify a number of viable affordable housing options, some of which we are already employing. The availability of accessory dwellings in a rural setting is viable, affordable (removes the cost of land from the cost of the accessory housing unit), and we know it works. Expanding the use of multi-family housing thoughout the Town should also help. In many instances, these housing options can be serviced by existing, on-site groundwater and sewage disposal systems, and that can also help save on housing costs. Hopefully, the Open Space/Affordable Housing committee will provide means with which the Town can partner with others to create additional affordable housing options that will work within a rural context.
The Plan proposes to ‘up-zone’ the Town, using 20, 10 and 6 acre zoning districts for the most part. The TNDs have been touted as the ‘insurance’ against claims that the up-zoning will create an exclusionary land use plan, the exclusion being affordability. There has recently been some discussion that those individuals of means who prefer a more urban setting will also be excluded if the TNDs are not included in the Plan. This latter charge flies in the face of the Plan’s stated intent to preserve Rhinebeck’s rural character. For those wanting a more urban setting, the choices abound and I do not believe Rhinebeck needs to be or should strive to be all things to all people.
As to the affordability issue, I do not believe that the TNDs offer a reliable guarantee that they are either viable or likely to offer affordability if they are built. If the demonstrably viable affordable options mentioned above do not fend off a claim of exclusionary zoning, the proposed zoning districts could be changed to 10, 5 and 3 acre districts, with strict adherence to requirements that 2/3 to 3/4 of each proposed lot within any subdivision in the Town be deemed ‘buildable’. Wetlands, watercourses, buffers, steep slopes over a designated percent would be considered unbuildable and their area deducted in determining a parcel’s ‘buildability’. It is not how much land you require in a building site that matters, but the carrying capacity of the land to support a proposed use without causing environmental, economic or aesthetic harm. By focusing upon buildability, mandating clustering for all major subdivisions and using our biodiversity/habitat maps in guiding the creation of those clusters, we can protect significant open space, support a continuation of the farming that still exists in Rhinebeck and protect the equity interests of our local property owners, all the while refuting claims of exclusionary zoning.
Michael Trimble
Rhinebeck, NY