MINUTES OF A REGULAR MEETING AND PUBLIC HEARING OF THE CORNWALL

MINUTES OF A SPECIAL MEETING AND PUBLIC HEARING OF THE CORNWALL PLANNING AND ZONING COMMISSION HELD ON JULY 25, 2006.

A Special Meeting of the Cornwall Planning and Zoning Commission was held at 7:30 pm on Tuesday, July 25 , 2006, in the Cornwall Town Hall. Present were: members David Colbert, Patrick Hare, Anne Kosciusko, Richard Lynn (7:45) and alternate James LaPorta. Also present were outgoing Land Use Clerk Colin Gold and incoming Clerk Tara O’Neill. James LaPorta was designated to vote.

OLD BUSINESS

Major Parcels Discussion Gordon Ridgway, Tom McGowan

Gordon Ridgway showed the Commission members several maps that he had regarding the DeLuca property, and highlighted several obvious restrictions on development. He said that these maps would be beneficial to the owners in that they would highlight some of the possibilities for acceptable development. He also said that after having walked the property with Elaine LaBelle of the Housatonic Valley Association, they thought that they had identified a spot most suited for development. Gordon also told the Commission about several sources of public funding for conservation. Including an expansion of the Housatonic State Forest, which Roberta Willis and Andrew Roraback would wholeheartedly support, as well as a land trust fundraising effort, which would benefit from a 50-50 deal with a State program. Gordon said that he planned to walk the property with the Cornwall Conservation Trust and HVA again, in preparation for a meeting with the owners in mid-August. Tom McGowan said that he hoped the State would be interested, but with no A-2 Survey even in existence, there will be many costs for the owners before they can even start the development process. Rick Lynn wondered who owned between the river and the railroad. Gordon said that he didn’t know for sure, but that often it was a RR Right-of-Way. James asked whether there were restrictions on developing land in the flood zone. Tom replied that there were very few, if any. James also wondered how hard it would be to get a crossing over the RR. Gordon said that it took an act of the State Legislature, and Rick added that the DOT has been reducing RR crossings, so to grant more would be unlikely. Tom warned the Commission that just because there are many restrictions and much work to be done, does not mean that the owner will be deterred from developing. Pat added that since the Commission was doing much of the work, it was, in fact beneficial to the process, since the owners will now know what the Commission is likely to approve. Tom said that the sales pitch to the State for the purchase of conservation land should be second-to-none in order to emphasize that this is a worthwhile and sensible project. He added that other conservation organizations may be willing to front some of the money for surveying, etc. Paul Baren, an attendee of the meeting added that he believed Falls Village was also talking to the State about purchase of land for conservation purposes. Tom told the Commission that the State process takes a long time, so it would be necessary to get the owner’s permission to initiate such a process. Pat asked whether the A-2 Survey was public information, and Tom replied that it was not. Pat said that he wanted the amendment to the Zoning Regulations on the requirement of a Conservations Development Proposal to be adopted as soon as possible. Tom also said that the Housatonic River Corridor could potentially be a useful tool for P&Z if they would amend it to be more stringent. He added that such measures had been successful in the Farmington River Valley. He also said that Ridgeline Protection measures as well as the fact that the Housatonic was a National Scenic River could be beneficial to conservation efforts. Rick said that the Housatonic River Commission had just redone their Plan, and he asked whether Tom had read it. Tom did not think that these issues had been addressed in that Plan. David asked that Tom provide the Commission with a copy of the Farmington River regulations.

Gordon also presented his progress on the Merz piece to the Commission. He said that he had met with the Cornwall Housing Corporation and that a soils map, including development constraints was in-hand. Tom summarized that some of the abutting property owners would hopefully buy some of the land, and the remaining acreage could be bought by the Town or Housing Corp. He added that this would be accomplished by lot line adjustment, not subdivision. Pat asked what would become of the commercially-zoned land. Tom said that the Commission would have to approve the lot line adjustment of that land. Pat expressed a need for the Commission to facilitate the concentration of development in village centers. He suggested that the Town could own the commercial land and lease it to businesses that were beneficial to the viability of Cornwall Bridge as a commercial center. He said that by not doing this, the Commission was avoiding its responsibility to undertake any planning issues. Tom replied that there were still other constraints, such as the privacy desired by the owner and the amount of time that was available to devise an acceptable scenario. He added that he saw no reason why the Commission could not take these issues up with the Housing Corp. after the sales had taken place. In addition, Tom supported Rick’s previous idea of a trail down from Dark Entry Road to the center of Cornwall Bridge. Gordon said that the commercial and housing issues could be hashed out later, and that at the present time it was necessary to abide by the owner’s wishes and “lock in” the scenario that he had proposed. He added that there would be more mapping done in the next few weeks. David said that he was uncomfortable talking about desired uses of specific parcels. Pat said that they could give their directions to Tom. Tom added that the owner was not asking for his advice in this instance. James felt that more footwork had to be done in order to craft an overall planning objective. Pat stressed the need to get ahead of the gun. Tom said that he would talk to Karl about the lot line adjustment issues on the property. Gordon had some maps from HVA that belonged to the Cornwall Conservation Trust so he shared them with the Commission briefly.

Budget Update

Gordon explained to the Commission that the POCD is part of the Capital Account, and is therefore not in the Land Use budget. Annie stressed a need for more ZEO hours.

GIS Maps

The Commission felt that they had acted upon this issue already.

POCD Progression

Annie went over her four focus areas, on which, she thought the Plan should be based. She thought that subcommittees should be formed in order to more thoroughly address the focus areas. Rick had done a simple outline for what each focus area would encompass. Annie thought that a presentation to the town should be done in order to explain the maps, allow David Grossman to show the Census work that he had done, and to alert the community of the Greenprint Project’s map of endangered places in town. Pat suggested involving people in the process of devising what the Plan should include. He suggested having specific topics/problems that could be discussed individually. Rick said that not all the P&Z members would have to be involved in every focus area, but that those who were would report back to the larger Commission what their subcommittee had decided. He suggested assigning chairpersons. Tom said that sending letters to interested town organizations would be a good way of including them in the discussions, and asking what issues should be addressed. Annie asked members what they thought should be done about hiring a consultant. Tom said that the consultant could meet with all the subcommittees but that P&Z should be in the driver’s seat. Pat said that he believed the previous Plan reflected many of the same needs, so the money should be focused on specific issues. Rick wondered whether the subcommittee chairs would be willing to draft their section. Tom warned that the direction/focus of subcommittees often wanders. He suggested getting a budget proposal from each subcommittee. Rick asked whether the chairs could be someone other than a P&Z member. Tom replied that it should be a Commission member, and Pat thought a vice-chair could be someone from a local non-profit. Tom encouraged the inclusion of citizen-experts. David expressed concerns about inadvertently omitting large aspects of what a focus area should include if the consultant was not involved early on in the process. Pat suggested that the subcommittee could hire a specialist in addition to the planning consultant. Pat also suggested going over this discussion at the next meeting so others can see where the Commission left off and what was decided. Rick suggested adding some of the discussion to the letters that would be sent out to interested organizations, also to include the forming of subcommittees and chairperson contact information. Annie asked which subcommittees the present members would like to be part of. David asked to be part of conservation, Pat – housing (zoning changes to prevent sprawl), James – conservation, and Rick said he would fill in wherever needed. Tom said that he often likes to form his goals first and then go back and see how they will be accomplished (in essence, work backward).

Seminar Recap

David said that there were not many people at the Open Space Forum. Annie said that it sounded from what Jim Gibbons said, the Commission needed to tweak their regulations just a little. David added that the first thing would be to specify what land in Cornwall is most desirable for conservation. Pat said that there was, in fact, no limit on what percentage of land that the Commission could ask for, but that 10-20% was typical. David said that he would like to revert to the old guidelines after the land inventory had been established. He added that he would like to set up a time to vote on whether to re-adopt the old regulations when there were more Commission members present. Pat volunteered to draft a summary of the suggestions that Jim Gibbons had for Cornwall’s regulations. Rick clarified that Jim could aid the Commission in strengthening its regulations, but could not do it for the Commission.

NEW BUSINESS

COMMUNICATIONS

ADJOURNMENT

The meeting was adjourned at 10:26 pm.

Colin Gold, Land Use Clerk

NOTE – THESE MINUTES ARE A DRAFT. THEY WILL BE NOTED AS FINAL ONLY AFTER THEY ARE REVIEWED AND APPROVED AS DRAFTED OR AS MODIFIED AT A SUBSEQUENT MEETING OF THE CORNWALL P&Z COMMISSION.