HomeMy WebLinkAbout2021-02-09 CAC MinutesTown of Danby Conservation Advisory Council Minutes Page 1 of 7
Town of Danby Conservation Advisory Council (CAC)
Minutes of Video Conference (Zoom) Meeting on
Tuesday, February 9, 2021
Danby, New York
Council Members present: Clare Fewtrell (chair), Joel Gagnon, George
Adams, Jonathan Zisk, Margaret Corbit, Mary Woodsen
Council Members absent: Brittany Lagaly, Don Schaufler
Others present: Elizabeth Keokosky (secretary), Ronda Roaring (Danby
resident), David West (town planner), Katharine Hunter (former CAC
member)
Zoom Meeting was officially called to order at 7:04.
Deletions or Additions to Agenda: none
Privilege of the Floor (PoF): none
Approval Minutes MOTION for January 8, 2020
Gagnon moved to approve
Adams seconded
Unanimous approval, except for Zisk who abstained
REPORTS AND UPDATES
1) Update on Brittany Lagaly
She is expecting twins and is now in the second trimester. She is not
having an easy pregnancy, but she still wants to participate. She has
tried to contact the Highway Dept. to arrange a talk on invasive
species. She also has ideas for other invasive species events,
especially in regards to spotted lantern fly. She still wants to do an
easement on her property but we will need to wait until the snow
melts to do an inspection.
Town of Danby Conservation Advisory Council Minutes Page 2 of 7
(Woodsen announced that Mark and Deidre Silverman – on Trevor
Rd – recently donated an easement to the Finger Lakes Land Trust.)
2) Annual Report for 2020 – Fewtrell
Fewtrell requested comments on the annual report she wrote.
Gagnon said it was excellent.
Gagnon moved to approve and send the annual report to the
Town Board
Woodsen seconded
Unanimous approval
3) Easement Webinar/Zoom Meeting – Fewtrell
The online presentation to explain the Danby Conservation Easement
Program to Danby residents was discussed. Fewtrell had suggested
a time frame of early April using a format of 30 minutes for the
presentation, leaving 30 minutes for the questions. However, in order
to give CAC members more time to assemble an easement web page
as an accompanying reference tool, a tentative date was set for May
13.
Fewtrell complimented Corbit on the document she had written to
simplify understanding easements, “Step-by-Step Guide to Donating
a Conservation Easement in Danby.” It was sent out for comments
but more were requested. Gagnon noted she was bringing fresh
eyes to the process. The Town clerk will be uploading it to CAC
website (she is also working on transitioning the current Town web
site to a new one). Woodsen offered to work on creating a separate
easement web page and Corbit, who had also noticed discrepancies
and confusions in easement file naming conventions on the website,
volunteered to work with Woodsen on this.
Fewtrell asked about Keokosky’s advertising sources for the forestry
webinar. Keokosky agreed to provide them but noted that only some
of these would be appropriate for a Danby-only presentation.
Gagnon agreed to take on the role of Presenter. The decision was
left open whether to use a the normal Zoom or a webinar format.
Town of Danby Conservation Advisory Council Minutes Page 3 of 7
4) Easement Sign – Fewtrell and Adams
After continuous shading of the picture for the easement sign was
changed to half-toning (pixilated), Adams said the price quote
decreased from $25 to $11 per sign, for a minimum of 25 signs.
Since he only just sent the email showing the new picture, the
discussion was saved for the next meeting.
Concerned that the original sign kept having complicating delays,
Fewtrell told group she was sending the two options (Ruth Sherman’s
older drawing and the adjusted drawing from Adams) in an email
tomorrow for members to decide which to pursue.
.
5) Easement Updates – Fewtrell
Dan Hoffman and Mark & Micaela Karlsen, who are planning to
donate an easement on their property on Bruce Hill road, have been
sent the wording for the new Restricted Forest Use Zone that the
CAC approved at its last meeting.
There is a proposal to subdivide the Wimsatt property at the corner of
Marsh and Deputron Hollow roads into 3 parcels: 40 acres on
eastern-most side (going toward Deputron Hollow), 27 acres in the
middle parcel, which holds the current log house and cabin, and 22
acres on the west side closest to Durfee Hill road. The western
parcel will be purchased by a neighbor. The only road frontage
available is on the eastern parcel corner at the Marsh Rd./Deputron
Hollow intersection. The goal is to negotiate an easement to reduce
development there (current zoning could allow 8 houses). The
easement would define space for one new family dwelling in the 40-
acre parcel but the young family purchasing it would like to have the
option of three more (for their “descendants”) in the future.
Gagnon explained that currently this parcel has 800 ft. of road
frontage but it is on an abandoned road. House building requires
road frontage on a road the Highway Dept. supports. The plan is to
put the house away from road in the south field, but driveways over
300 feet require special construction.
Other considerations were 1) that the woods (with a small stream) on
the south side of the eastern parcel, which borders Deputron Hollow
Town of Danby Conservation Advisory Council Minutes Page 4 of 7
UNA, be designated as a restricted forest use zone, or an ag and
forest management zone. Gagnon noted that the property had raised
a host of issues, but the next step was to negotiate an easement on
the entire Wimsatt property before it is subdivided.
Gagnon previewed some of his ideas for a “roads to trails” model, in
response to a new government law that is requiring that if a house is
built on a seasonal road, the road must to maintained to support the
house. This might be difficult for some roads in Danby. Other
options would be for the town to abandon seasonal roads,
discontinue them, or to turn them into trails. The group started to
discuss this.
Qualified abandonment needs the approval of the County Highway
Superintendent. Laura Shawley was reported as saying Danby
Highway Dept. has a good working relationship with him.
Woodsen asked if we were going to join the NYSACC (New York
State Association of Conservation Commissions: https://nysacc.org/ )
and Fewtrell said we could add it to the next meeting’s agenda.
6) Report on progress of Logging Ordinance – Adams, Schaufler,
and Zisk
Adams said that he planned to bring the draft ordinance to the town
clerk, town planner and highway department before our next meeting.
His newest draft made legislation less burdensome than the original
draft. His main concern was to catch the jobs that were controversial.
Fewtrell said she thought the goal was just to get people to register
and provide maps of the logging that they are planning so that the
Town is aware of possible environmental risks. She asked if the
concern was that this wouldn’t provide enough teeth to respond to
problems?
Gagnon said that it is time to bring the logging document to CAC
group for feedback. We also need to put the DEC field guide for best
management practices on the CAC website. See
https://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/lands_forests_pdf/forestrybmp.pdf
Town of Danby Conservation Advisory Council Minutes Page 5 of 7
The ordinance will be discussed at the next meeting after Adams gets
some feedback from the Highway Department and Zoning officer, and
members re-read the draft. He is still pursuing a three pronged
objective which includes education as well as regulation.
(Discussion of priorities for next agenda. (Webinar, sign, and logging
ordinance). Zisk suggested the ordinance may take as much as an
hour.
7) What do we want to achieve in 2021 (continued) and mission
statement - all
Gagnon summarized the discussion as being about whether the
“Purpose and Authority” list in the Resolution creating the
Conservation Advisory Council (put in the addendum of the last
minutes) could be used as a mission statement. Fewtrell said that
she was not enthusiastic about mission statements, and felt that the
most important thing was to create easements – which CAC was
doing.
PoF: Keokosky asked about how Open Space plans (or lack of them)
were affecting choices of easement locations rather than on a catch-
as-catch-can basis. She was informed that this was what the
Conservation Working Group was doing – though it might be taking
longer than planned.
The discussion continued around open space containing UNAs
(unique natural areas), like Deputron Hollow. Fewtrell knows Paul
Soloway, who is the owner of the parcel on the far side of the Danby-
owned property on Deputron Hollow, and volunteered to contact him.
Roaring had volunteered to find owners around UNAs and state land.
She reported on plans she had suggested at the Conservation
Working Group. She had a list of all the owners on Deputron Hollow.
She also included those on Olsefski Road (a seasonal road that goes
off at an angle from Deputron Hollow Road to Coddington Road),
which she said also had some easements with the Finger Lakes Land
Trust, as well as Gilbert Road (which dead ends on the plateau of the
hill above Deputron Hollow on the edge of more Finger Lake Land
Trust property owned by the Gilberts. Fewtrell asked the Town
Town of Danby Conservation Advisory Council Minutes Page 6 of 7
Planner to find out who bought Aaron St. John’ properties (where
logging recently occurred).
Several ideas were floated on how coordinating this project could be
accomplished and/or financed. A Zoom meeting between property
owners and the CAC might be a way to initiate and inform people
about Gagnon’s concept of roads to trails, as well as discussing
conservation ideas for the area, and see if there is any public interest.
(After-note: the possibility of using federal funds from the US Forest
Service to create a trail system for recreation suggested by Roaring
might not have the correct fit since it requires full purchase of land. It
provides funds with a 50% matching requirement. See
https://www.fs.usda.gov/managing-land/private-land/community-forest/program
. The DEC is proposing a forestry protection grant program that does
not have the same requirements as the Federal program, but has yet
to pass the state legislature.)
8) Town Board’s response to Proposed Management Plans for
Town Properties on Deputron Hollow Road and Sylvan Lane –
Gagnon reported that no one on the town board had comments. So if
no one comes to the public hearing which is being held on the 17th it
will go right through. Two small corrections need to be made to the
Sylvan Lane property management part of it, which Fewtrell will take
care of with the Town Clerk.
9) Planning Group and Conservation Working Group Report –
Gagnon
The groups are up and running again after a hiatus. They will be
starting to look into how to modify Danby regulations to buttress
conservation easement areas near water, UNAs, or better agriculture
soil areas.
One tool to reduce development density is increasing the 5 acre
minimum lot size to 10 acres. The possibility for development is
increased along a road because current rules allow a lot for every
200 feet of road frontage, and each lot could possibly contain a two-
family house. Current regulations do not allow for flag lots with a
driveway leading to land in back. A road must be put in, which is
prohibitively expensive. People buy the 200 feet of road frontage and
build further back from the road which is an environmental trade-off
Town of Danby Conservation Advisory Council Minutes Page 7 of 7
between greater fragmentation and visual aesthetics. The Town of
Ithaca has a lot size of 7 acres in conservation zones so there is a
precedent. Allowing flag lots with shared driveways is also a possible
way to proceed. People who buy in the country usually want privacy
rather than residential clusters.
Decisions like these are long-term and could determine the type of
development that evolves. These ideas will be discussed in the
Conservation Planning Working Group and then go to Planning
Group, and from there to Town Board. CAC and Planning Board will
weigh in on them as well.
There was no Executive session
Next Meeting through Zoom is on February 9th at 7p.m.
Adjournment
The meeting adjourned at 9:20 p.m.
_____________________________________________
Submitted by Elizabeth Keokosky (Secretary)