To the Supervisor and Members of the Town Board
Town Board
Town of Rhinebeck
80 East Market Street
Rhinebeck, NY 12572
To the Supervisor and Members of the Town Board:
I doubt if any serious issues regarding the Comprehensive Plan have yet to be adequately addressed before you so the following are some random thoughts.
FYI, I have a home in Rhinecliff since 1980 and have been a year-round weekender during 1980-82 and from1996 to the present, during the interim keeping in touch with visits, the Gazette-Advertiser, and Rhinecliff and Rhinebeck friends.
I. It’s about re-zoning with minimal harm.
The draft Comprehensive Plan is ambitious to the extreme—it addresses so many issues that the reason for its existence gets lost: i.e., setting the rules and spirit for land use in the Town of Rhinebeck for years to come.
In his excellent letter to you dated June 19, 2006, Michael Trimble stated the challenge concisely:
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.
To this I would add “or a significant reduction in the quality of life currently enjoyed by the community”.
A comprehensive plan is the required preliminary to new or modified zoning. If the Town Board can achieve a Comprehensive Plan that rezones without causing environmental, economic or esthetic harm and avoids significant deterioration of the high quality of life we now enjoy in Rhinebeck, it will have done us a great service.
II. Rhinecliff: Rhinebeck’s discardable asset
The draft Plan greatly underestimates the present and future value of Rhinecliff to the Town. The Plan appears to regard Rhinecliff as a random collection of ragtag houses that once housed Rhinebeck’s servant class and now can be subjected to development with impunity.
To the contrary, Rhinecliff is Rhinebeck’s underappreciated gem and future asset. Most of its homes have undergone or are undergoing major renovations. Rhinecliff residents are architects, artists, photographers, writers, economists, lawyers, journalists, restaurateurs and psychologists. Its eclectic atmosphere is an attraction not otherwise present in Rhinebeck. It has the river. And it is small; people know one another and meet and mix in ways that is impossible to simply create.
Arbitrarily tacking on population density and modern housing will dilute Rhinecliff’s unique appeal and possibly even reverse it. Rhinebeck should be encouraging this unique community that most towns would fight hard to obtain.
III. They gain; we lose.
We must ask who wins and who loses. The developers of course are here to make profits—very large profits. Most of them will not live in Rhinebeck; those that do clearly don’t mind that much will be lost.
The residents will not make profits: projections of increased housing prices beyond the increases already occurring are highly speculative and unlikely to occur. Far worse, current residents will lose many of the elements of Rhinebeck living that they value the most: its rural character, the lovely roads, unspoiled woods, clean air, quiet days and nights without the sounds of population, and the ability to see the stars. We in Rhinecliff would get congestion, busy streets and air, noise and light pollution. Some speculate that Rhinecliff would get sewers at the expense of the developers; but no developer is going to pay for the very expensive lines and individual hookups. Some say Rhinecliff could have a commercial district; but we don’t need to be a “little Rhinebeck Village”. And anyone who has successfully run a retail operation will tell you that Rhinecliff is far short of the market numbers—by an order of magnitude—needed to sustain a shop or service location and that commuters shop at home, not by their train station.
Some bargain. Rhinebeck residents give up the ambiance that brought them here so a few people can make a huge amount of money. It’s a deal to turn P.T. Barnum green with envy.
IV. For the record:
I agree with Michael Trimble’s eloquent letter critiquing the “TND” approach of the draft Plan.
I agree with Kerry Trueman’s letter that walkability is much more complex and difficult to achieve than the Plan assumes and that Rhinecliff provides little or no potential for walkability other than casual strolling. (How can it be a walkable community if its children cannot walk to school?)
I believe that the Town will not be able to protect the beauty of River Road, Morton Road or Mill Road if even a fraction of the development now proposed is permitted to be built. All three will either be widened or will no longer be safe for jogging, cycling, or even casual drives.
The Town must confront with urgency and creative planning the coming crisis around the Rhinecliff train station. Traffic at the station already is dominated by Ulster County residents with many more expected. Additional parking will only attract more cars. Shuttle buses are never accepted by commuters. Long-term solutions likely include convincing Amtrak and Metro North to open an additional station at Barrytown or Staatsburg by limiting further expansion in Rhinecliff.
A greenbelt around Rhinecliff will address some of the problems of growth we have uncovered in this process but it can only be part of the solution.
Affordable housing in a Town with such uniformly high property costs is likely to be achieved only by approving individual multi-family housing units scattered around the Town and second units on individual properties. Creating large affordable housing areas will require unacceptable subsidization by the Town either through tax concessions or the granting of unwanted additional density. And, affordable housing is extremely difficult to maintain for the long term.
V. Irrelevancies and red herrings
It is possible to eat lunch in the middle of Madison Avenue and 86th Street in Manhattan if you eat fast.
I commend the Board for its careful, thoughtful and transparent approach to finalizing this crucial Plan.
With best regards,
Barry Nemmers
