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General News: Village Board Begins Master Plan Review
May 18, 2009
The village board of trustees turned its attention to the proposed comprehensive master plan on Saturday when it sat down with members of the planning and zoning board to talk about the goals and objectives of the project.
Members of the Master Plan Committee, which started working on the project more than four years ago, explained how they arrived at recommendations, including proposed zoning changes and efforts to develop more businesses in the business district.
Master Plan committee chairman Lee Murphy criticized the slow pace of action of the draft plan and registered his dissatisfaction with the fact that Mayor Gross had the plan revised by a county planner even before the trustees had reviewed the committee’s version. He also questioned why the revised plan was not up for review at the meeting. Mayor Gross reassured him that once all the trustees have reviewed the re-written plan, it may serve as a guide but may not necessarily be adopted.
As the meeting moved along, the purpose of the business district was discussed, with a focus on how small service businesses along Hudson Street could relieve pressure on taxes by not housing families with school age children that drive up school taxes and by paying a higher property tax rate.
Architect Jeffrey Small, who is the head of the planning board and a member of the Master Plan Committee explained how they studied how the village could look if new houses were built according to the current zoning laws. A proposal of lot size and other zoning changes shed light on how planners want to balance the rights of property owners to build any type of house they want with the needs of neighbors to maintain houses within an existing scale. The perennial discussion of parking needs surfaced, as did the safety of the intersection of Duncan Avenue and Hudson Street. Andrew Argenio, who also sits on the planning board, said he’d like to see more green building practices, including those involving demolition projects, included in the plan
No mention of the next step of the process of adopting a new master plan was addressed, but Mayor Gross made it clear that he doesn’t agree with everything in the plan. He’d also like to see issues added, including a provision that would allow people to keep farm animals and sell produce in the village, the management of water resources, and incentives for people to run a “mom-and-pop’ store, where the store owner lives in the building. He noted that scenic resource protection and the view preservation must be addressed, noting that it is a contentious issue in the village.
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