Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout2020-06-30CB 6/30/2020 Dryden Conservation Board June 30th, 2020 Members Present: Gian Dodici (Chair), Bob Beck, Anne Clark, David Wilson, Peter Davies, Jeanne Grace, Nancy Munkenbeck, Craig Schutt Absent: Tim Woods & Milo Richmond Liaisons: Loren Sparling (Town Board), James Skaley (Conservation Board), David Weinstein (Planning Board), Simon St Laurent (Planning Board) Guest(s): Ari Dubow Meeting was called to order at 7:08 PM Review and approval of minutes dated May 26th, 2020 On motion made by C. Schutt, seconded by B. Beck, minutes were unanimously approved as written. D Weinstein did a brief background on the Bluebird subdivisions - As you know we have been entertaining in cluster subdivisions the setting aside of land that the town will hold a conservation easement on. It is not clear if it a conservation easement for the bluebird subdivision. This is a subdivision that is on the east side of Dryden lake. We said that we would only allow this subdivision if we draw a line on the map that shows you cannot build within a certain distance from the lake. Also, we set a line that no building should take place within a certain distance from the road. A building was put up that is partly in the upper section of the subdivision that is reserved for conservation. Which raises question of who has responsibility to defend that conservation idea? Does putting a line on the map make it an authorized conservation zone? Because there were so many questions, we put in a 6 -month moratorium to figure this out with our lawyer, Khandi. She studied it and told us about what our rights and responsibilities are. We can in fact set up these conservation zones. The better way is to do a conservation easement like we have on Ellis Hollow properties. But we can also set up conservation zones without going through the conservation easement process. The problem is there are several steps that need to be followed in order to make sure that this is an authorized item. One step is to make sure that it is a deed restriction and gets entered into the deeds of all the properties. We didn't do that right but now we know what steps to take in the future. We have the right to defend these conservation zones. In this case it is problematic and it's not clear what will happen because the town skipped a couple steps that we now cannot go back to. We need to continue to survey these zones seriously. A big step we skipped was not sending this agreement to our lawyer to get her in on the ground floor to say here is the CB 6/30/2020 document that needs to be filed with this conservation zone . We will not skip this again. Going forward, conservation easements will pass through the town lawyer. Either we will set up conservation easements or a deed of conservation restriction which is an attached document that goes with deed. She will make sure that those things happen. A shed was also built about 4 feet into the conservation zone. The planning department staff would not purposefully issue a certificate of occupancy for something that was being built over the line into these conservation zones, but the mistake was made. Now they have implemented a procedure that will catch anything like this from happening again before it is too late. Subdivision Comments: B Beck: • In the future if these zones are written into deeds, the deed should refer to some legal document. • Future owners' deeds and new deeds would have to comply with the conservation easement. • Unfortunately, the town slipped up issuing a permit that should not have been issued and we are stuck with the results. • The Planning Board needs to follow up with violations. • Property owners can hide critical information then go to the planning department and get approval for a new building in the wrong place, etc. • Someone should be more seriously checking in records to make sure that when the town issues a permit they are doing the right thing. • Encourages the town to take this seriously and to enforce the rules. P Davies: • The idea of the conservation board taking on the responsibility of checking on what is happening to these conservation easements and zones gives us something solid to do as we did last year with the Ellis Hollow ones. With the virus it has been slow, but I think we should get back into it. • Volunteered to walk the properties to check on what is happening. Keeping an eye on these agreements and doing the work will give the Conservation Board more to do than we have done in the past. • The problem is that we keep'changing the representative from this committee to the town board or from the town board to this committee, etc. • Somebody in the planning department should be sending a notice saying that it has been a year since the last report and letting us know we have to do it again. G Dodici: • The Planning Department needs to generate a list of all the conservations zones and easements. • There should be a standard operating procedure in regards to what the decision making is and a check list to make sure everything is in order. CB 6/30/2020 J Skaley: • There has been a lack of communication between highway and Planning Department regarding road cuts. • There needs to be some operating procedures about what the cycle of decision-making is. A Clark: Nancy: A document that has to do with the easements should be signed off by each committee to assure that everyone has seen it and make sure that it is circulating. The Conservation Board should put in a report stating that we followed up on the original agreement based on the conservation easement. We've got to get direct interaction and agreement from the Planning Board. What is the outcome if there is a problem? There are all kinds of ways to violate it after the fact. No permitting process. What if something is done and there is a violation? What happens then? What's the point if there is a violation and nothing is done anyway? If the town fails at enforcements in some cases others can claim selective enforcement and get the whole thing voided. D. Weinstein responds to comments: It goes beyond the Conservation Board because the Planning Board members didn't even realize that there was an official document that has been filed with the town that identified your review of the status of the property when you walked it. People need to know that it has been created and filled out when you do a walk and is the legal summary of the town's responsibility keeping track of these easements. The lines on the official map clearly say you will not build over the designated lines. It's like everything, someone just has to make sure the rules are being followed. The town has a responsibility to make sure no one violated those deed restrictions. J Skaley is wondering what the annual review of the conservation easements are that we have to make. J Grace answered: part of the requirement to the town holding conservation easements is it's our responsibility to make sure that the agreement isn't broken. Ex: if they were supposed to have 5 acres of undeveloped property, we have to make sure they didn't decide to build a garage there or drop a premade shed there. G Dodici says he is going to follow up with Ray and ask him to let us know what is going on and ask him to be more engaged with us. CB 6/30/2020 Rail Trail - B. Beck states that he doesn't have a new report from the Rail Trail project but says that he had a good meeting on the 15th and will have another meeting sometime in July. He says things are moving forward. The board would like to thank Ray Burger for all of his continuous work with the Rail Trail Project. He's been doing a great job. Deer Management - T Woods was going to follow up with Dr. Blossey and Joe Guernsey, but he was not at this meeting to share his newly found information. J Grace says that she does not have any new information to share. Water Issues - G Dodici tried reaching out to DPW but the supervisor seems to be too busy to talk about these issues. A Clark believes the excavation of the ditches is way too deep at the edge of the road. This causes the road to constantly break off into the ditches. The water made deep cuts so although its vegetated the very bottom is like a stream. Although it depends on the rain, she believes that the deep ditches were not a good idea. The stream (near her residence on Hile School Road) comes from the south east corner and runs north west across the field and empties into the fields. These fields are spread with manure and is providing opportunities for runoff into the ditches and directly into the Owasco inlet during heavy rain events. C Schutt agrees that the ditches are too deep, as is the case in many roadsides following ditching maintenance. Schutt went on to say he had driven to Hile School Road to observe the problems described by Anne Clark and agreed that the ditches appeared to be dug deeper than necessary. Schutt went on to say that from his observation the ditches are fairly well re - vegetated at this point. Clarke replied that the re -vegetation had occurred naturally, and that the town had not re -seeded them following ditch maintenance. Schutt agreed that was so from his observations. Water Issues Comments G Dodici: • Will continue to try to get in contact with DPW but we cannot make the highway superintendent meet because he is an elected official. • This water issue is a recent problem within the last 5 years. It's not just us having these problems, it's all around the state. D Wilson: CB 6/30/2020 • Last year we were talking about creating a map about problematic ditches around town that may be candidates for test practices and it would be a great idea to do so. J Grace: • If we cannot get the town to talk to us we maybe able to get the county to work with US. P Davies: • We should have an appointed Highway Superintendent that is responsive to the Town Board. Because even if you don't like what the current superintendent is doing, if no one stands against him we can't un -elect him. N Munkenbeck: Would like to see someone more professional as superintendent, but she fears that if the person who is hired isn't doing a good job and the board wouldn't fire him/her. The previous superintendent was more knowledgeable than the current. But because he ran as a republican there was a big to-do from the democrats. Tom Reed was trashing the local representative to our county from Ellis Hollow who was chairman of the legislature. The democrats put out a big push to get people to come out to vote and the voters had no idea who they were voting for, they just knew they wanted to vote democratic. The guy who was a republican who did well at his job got voted out. Peter says that that's the problem with voting. If the person was appointed the town board could look at credentials and if the person was not responsive to the town board, they could fire him/her. David asks what the path towards changing it to an appointed position- it is a referendum. We tried in the past, but it got shot down. N Munkenbeck: In the past we kept referring to the response to surveys as justifications to things we were doing and that was to find out about conservation. There will probably not be any other survey done for decades so if there are any questions that will be helpful to the Conservation Board in future decision making, see if it is in there or could be in there. Survey The board looked at the survey with S. St Laurent and made suggestions. There being no further business, under motion by Peter Davies, seconded by Nancy Munkenbeck, the meeting was adjourned at 9:27 p.m. CB 6/30/2020 Respectfully submitted, Emily unwell Deputy Town Clerk