Video

In the summer of 2008 we at rhinecliff.org were very fortunate to have a discussion with Randall Arendt about the proposed comprehensive plan and its impact on our community. Given the recent votes of the Town Board concerning the Rhinecliff extension, use of the Holy Cross site, and other changes to the Comp-Plan, we felt this discussion would help educate the community and the Town Board about the need to adopt a truly "Comprehensive" plan for the community. One that plans for the future, preserves the extremely important historic district, and does not reward a single out-of-town developer at the expense of the community. All of Mr. Arendt's concepts are expressed in alternative "F" of the DGEIS. 

This video discussion is shown for the first time today (January 6th) and is exclusive to rhinecliff.org

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Video clips from the December 15th Town Board meeting. While board member Dod Crane explained the significant problems of developing the rhinecliff extension as described in the Comp-Plan, board member Dan Staley expresses his desire to see substantial development in Rhinecliff and the need "to make it worth some developers time and money"

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In an effort to shed light on the controversial Town meeting that took place on December 15th we have extracted two clips of video from the meeting.

Rhinebeck Town Board Comp-Plan and zoning workshop12/15/08 Holy Cross video clip:

Rhinebeck Town Board Comp-Plan and zoning workshop 12/15/08 Rhinecliff extension video clip:

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You can now watch the complete video of the controversial meeting of December 15th and the meeting of December 30th

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On Saturday night Rhinebeck experienced the Sinterklaas festival in all its glory. Thousands of people gathered to watch the parade of giant puppets and bagpipers march to the town parking lot where the stage was set for the "starlight grand finale pageant." The stage featured the dancing bears, fire juggling, the Abbots Bronley Deer Dance, Woodstock Renaissane Singers, Father Charlie Coen, the Wildman, the 4 Seasons, the on the Lam Street Band, The Mystic Minstrels, Creatures from the Wood and much more. Below is raw video footage of the entire parade and pageant. ENJOY!

We will be adding all the Town Meetings from January and February shortly. Please note that there are some sound problems in this video but the sound improves after the first five minutes.

We would like to make note that towards the end of the meeting Dennis McGuire, the Town Supervisor from several years ago, expressed his dismay over Rhinecliff's leaf pickups. Mr. McGuire went on to say that this had never happened before and it was "not fair" to the rest of the town.

We found this particularly odd as Mr.McGuire allowed this very practice while he was Town supervisor. We reviewed old copies of Town minutes during Mr. McGuire's tenure and found multiple examples of meetings he supervised that mentioned Rhinecliff leaf pickup day. Click HERE to view one example from the November 14, 2005 Town Board Minutes.

The following is a video excerpt from the Open Space and Affordable Housing public forum of November 14th. (We will be posting the complete video shortly.)

In this clip, Andrew Sheppard (of rhinecliff.org) repeatedly asks Steve Rosenberg Co-Chair and Bob Wills Co-Chair why their map does not accurately identify Rhinecliff as part of the National Historic Landmark District. Oddly, they were unable to provide an answer as to why such an important map would designate some areas as historic yet exclude the hamlet from a designation as a historically sensitive area.

New York State has designated the entire hamlet of Rhinecliff as a Scenic Area of Statewide Significance (SASS) and includes this passage in its designation:

"The Rhinecliff subunit is included in the Estates District SASS because it is a unique scenic and historic Hudson River landing. The Rhinecliff subunit exhibits a variety of architectural styles unified by their historic character and hamlet development pattern. Contrast is found between the hamlet form, the steep bluff and the expansive Hudson River. The subunit is both visually and physically accessible via the Hudson River, the railroad trains and local streets and roads. Rhinecliff is well known for its historic railroad station and river landing. The hamlet is publicly recognized for its scenic and historic values through the designations of the Mid-Hudson Historic Shorelands Scenic District and the Rhinecliff Road Scenic Road under Article 49 of the Environmental Conservation Law. The hamlet is included in the Hudson River National Historic Landmark District and in the Rhinebeck Multi-Resource Historic District listed on the State and National Registers of Historic Places."

View the Open Space & Affordable Housing Plan.

10/22/07 Rhinebeck Town Board Town Board Regular Workshop Meeting Preliminary Agenda October 22, 2007 Call to Order: 8:00 PM Roll Call: Announcements: Rebuilding Together Dutchess County, formerly know as XMAS in April, is beginning its 17th year of providing home repairs for low income homeowners in our county. Applications are available in the Town Clerk’s office and must be filed by November 30, 2007. Please call Barb Cunningham, 876-3409 for further information. The Town of Rhinebeck Highway Department will hold a “Bike Rodeo” on Saturday, October 20, 2007 at the Highway Department facility located at 119 Rhinecliff Road, Rhinebeck. Cooperating agencies include the Rhinebeck Police Department, AAA Club of New York, and the Rhinebeck Recreation Department. Old Business: 1. Authorization for the Highway Department to purchase an International 7400 heavy-duty class 8 truck complete with dump body, plow and wing, not exceed $125,000 and budget transfers within the Highway Department budget to facilitate this purchase. This purchase will upgrade three vehicles in the fleet. 2. Authorization for the Highway Department to purchase a Ford F-250 pickup truck, with plow, not to exceed $25,000 to replace the current truck that will be purchased by the town cemetery, and budget transfers to facilitate this purchase. 3. Authorization for the Cemetery to purchase the 2002 Ford F-250 from the Highway Department for $12,500. New Business: 4. Considering contract with Dutchess County for the production of the Town's Open Space Map for an amount not to exceed $600. Proposed Actions: 5. Approving regular check disbursement list. 6. Approving capital project check disbursement list. 7. Approving minutes of October 22,, 2007. Adjourn

Town Board Regular Workshop Meeting
Preliminary Agenda
September 24, 2007

Call to Order: 6:45PM

Roll Call:

Announcements:

The town clerk’s office will be closed Tuesday Sept 25th for off-site computer training in the new clerk’s software package.

Town Hall, the highway department and the transfer station will be closed on Monday, October 8, in celebration of Columbus Day. Consequently, the next regular town board meeting will be held on Tuesday, October 9, at the Rhinecliff fire house.

Registration for winter basketball and gymnastic programs will be held on Saturday, September 29, from 9-12 in town hall.

This year's Community Development Block Grant applications are now available in the Town Clerk's office. Completed applications must be submitted to the County by October 5, 2007.

Weather permitting, the Highway Department will complete the Mt. Rutsen Road safety resurfacing on Monday September 24.

Rebuilding Together Dutchess County, formerly know as XMAS in April, is beginning its 17th year of providing home repairs for low income homeowners in our county. Applications are available in the Town Clerk’s office and must be filed by November 30, 2007. Please call Barb Cunningham, 876-3409 for further information.

The Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan training for evaluating the consistency of federal, state and local public and private land use proposals with the provisions of our approved LWRP will take place on September 27 at 7 PM- 9 PM in town hall. The primary audience for this training is the CAC, town board and the planning and zoning boards. Two staff member from New York Department of State will conduct the training .The public is welcome.

Presentation:

The Hudsonia Bio-diversity Study of Rhinebeck
Andy Reinmann, biologist and the principal investigator will present

Old Business:

1. Latest report on discussions with the State Department of Transportation regarding construction of a park 'n ride lot on Rt. 199 near the 9G intersection.

2. Considering a plan from the Highway Superintendent and the Supervisor in response to the request of the Heart Safe Club of Rhinebeck to deploy AED equipment throughout public facilities and to train public employees and officials. The proposals include town purchase of eight new AEDs to be located at town hall, stone church fields, the transfer station, the dock, the cemetery, and three at the highway department to augment the single unit currently located at the Thompson-Mazzarella Park., and a morning training program with the entire highway department staff and as many town hall employees and officials as can be persuaded to attend the session, for a total cost of $16,000.

3. Report from Board member Linda Souers and developments at the town landing in Rhinecliff.

New Business:

4. Identifying dates for the Town Board to accept and begin considering the 2008 preliminary budget.

5. Considering a resolution of thanks to Arthur & Nancy Kelly on the occasion of their receiving the Dutchess County Historical Society’s Helen Wilkinson Reynolds Award for their efforts in preserving local history.

Proposed Actions:

6. Accepting bids for material and supplies for the 2008 highway department budget, as recommended by the Highway Superintendent.

7. Approving regular check disbursement list.

8. Approving capital project check disbursement list.

9. Approving minutes of September 10, 2007.

Adjourn into Executive Session:

Vanderburgh Cove litigation

Rhinecliff Advisory Council 14 point review of proposed Rhinebeck Town Comprehensive Plan.

If you wish to download the complete meeting to your iPod CLICK HERE.

rhinecliff.org will be re-launching with many new features and a much improved graphical interface. One feature we have been planning over the last few months is the ability to provide the community with a complete video stream of every Town Meeting. We think this is the future of every community around the country as it harnesses the best features of current web technology to keep the community informed and the government open and accessable. While we are not ready to launch the new rhinecliff.org, our automated video encoding and compressing is now working! We will endeavor to post every Town Meeting within 7-10 days of the meeting. These meetings will be archived to make them available to everyone at anytime. We want to thank PANDA for providing the broadcasts over Time Warner cable channel 23.

This is the Monday, September 17th meeting. The town board met in public session to discuss the draft zoning modifications with its consultants and volunteer leadership. No public comment took place during these sessions. This was "in order to complete the work of the town board in preparing the various documents -- zoning code in this case -- for public distribution and to launch the SEQRA and public review and comment phase of this process."

If you wish to download the complete meeting to your iPod CLICK HERE.

The future of Rhinecliff as we know it is in jeopardy. The buildings and landscape of our humble, historic hamlet have remained largely unchanged for more than a century, giving our community a unique, unspoiled charm that compelled many of us to choose Rhinecliff over other locations. Houses have been added onto, a few new homes have been built, businesses have come and gone, yet the overall small-town quality so many of us cherish has remained the same.

But as more and more people have recognized the singularly desirable qualities that our hamlet has to offer, property values have skyrocketed, giving prospective developers a tremendous incentive to build up our beloved enclave of mostly modest houses.

Some of us miss having a café, or would like to see some kind of general store in Rhinecliff’s existing business district. Many of us yearn for a “green belt” to protect our tiny hamlet. Others, however, want no such protection at all, and would even like to see our current one acre zoning reduced to a quarter acre to permit greater density.

What is your vision for the future of Rhinecliff? Do you believe our quality of life would be enhanced by an extensive waste water treatment plant, an enlarged business district, or a “multi-modal public transportation” hub and much greater density? Would you like to see our open space preserved, or do you think our community would be improved by more new construction, condo developments, and quarter-acre zoning? Are you worried by the prospect of more cars speeding down Kelly Street?

If you doubt the urgency of the need for citizen participation in planning Rhinecliff’s future, please view this video clip from a recent Rhinebeck Town meeting, in which one Rhinebeck resident who owns more than 500 acres bordering Rhinecliff lobbies for much greater density in Rhinecliff, calling for sewage treatment, a “multi-modal public transportation” hub, and expansion of the business district.

Some individual landowners would profit significantly from such development. But would it benefit the majority of Rhinecliff residents? Would it enhance our community’s quality of life? We all have a stake in the future of our hamlet, and with the Rhinecliff Advisory Council, you can have a say.

We strongly believe that the kind of development some people are proposing for our hamlet would destroy Rhinecliff's unique character. As one local farmer told the New York Times, “You never bulldoze 100 houses and make a farm. You bulldoze a farm and make 100 houses. When it's gone, it's gone forever.''

Think about it. This may be our last chance to preserve the Rhinecliff we know and love. Act now, before it's too late; submit your application today!

Please post your comments here or visit our comprehensive plan forum.