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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2013-01-16-PIM & PH Town of Ulysses Public Informational Meeting and Public Hearing January 16, 2013 * * audio available on www. ulysses . ny.us Present : Supervisor Roxanne Marino ; Councilpersons David Kerness, Lucia Tyler, Kevin Romer; Deputy Supervisor Sue Poelvoorde ; Environmental Planner/Zoning Officer Darby Kiley; and Recording Secretary Robin Carlisle-Peck . Others Present: Sign in sheet on file in Clerk ' s Office . Supervisor Marino called the meeting to order at 7 : 00 p . m . and explained the procedure for tonight starting with the Public Informational Meeting with a presentation by Environmental Planner/Zoning Officer Darby Kiley and then a Public Hearing on the Draft Ulysses Agricultural Farmland Protection Plan dated November 27, 2012 . Public Informational Meeting Ms . Marino opened the informational meeting by introducing the members of the Town Board, Deputy Supervisor Sue Poelvoorde and Environmental Planner/Zoning Officer Darby Kiley. Ms. Marino said that the evening will be divided into two parts starting with the Public Informational Meeting, which will consist of a presentation by Ms . Kiley describing the plan and the process used to develop plan. When the presentation wraps up there will be time for questions . At the close of the Public Informational Meeting the Supervisor will open the Public Hearing. Ms . Marino turned over the floor to Ms . Kiley. Ms . Kiley gave her presentation. *Note : audio available at www. ulysses . ny . us Ms . Kiley open the floor for questions and any clarifications on the presentation and noted that written comments will be taken until February 1 , 2013 . Ms . Marino recognize the full Ag Committee that worked on the plan and listed their names ; also introduced Doug Austic who was Supervisor who set up the committee and got things going in 2009 . With that Ms . Marino opened the floor for questions . John Wertis : on the cover of the document a name of Tom Daniels was identified and wished to know his role in the document. Ms. Poelvoorde said that he was brought in as a consultant by Bergman Associates which was part of the original contract . Unidentified speaker: asked about inaccuracies in the document and how could someone go about having them corrected. Ms . Kiley: first would have to know what the inaccuracies are ; maps have been updated based on new information; dated up through 2009 and tried to update a few things but in otherwise it has been a little tricky so we have said every five years as it is updated we can make sure that dated is moved forward. Unidentified speaker: how can decisions be made without updated information Ms . Marino : said that there are only certain data bases that are made available by the County which were used to produce these maps . We can certainly look at that. Cho Chang : on committee and started off with maps and was not sure how they were generated, a lot were based on aerial photos and some kind of software to figure it out. The committee kind of struggled about changing a lot of that from there own knowledge but it became very time consuming at a certain point accepted the map they had. Town of Ulysses 01 / 16/2013 2 Public Informational Mtg./Public Hearing David Means : said that along those same lines the County is trying to re-assess the agriculture land and that will probably be done with a computer in an office and he does not know if the committee can have the assessment office come out and look at some of the land. Monica Roth:: commented that the County Assessor is coming to the County Ag and Farmland Board meeting next Wednesday and will also be included as a topic at the Ag Summit the last of February where Jay Franklin, TC Assessment Director will talk about the process of the reevaluation of agricultural land Robert Howarth : also on the committee ; commented on the data of the maps and agrees with Mr. Chang that the committee tried to use local knowledge and make it make sense ; two sets of data that go into the one and one is County sources such as tax records and then there are the aerial photos from Bergman. The appendixes do a pretty good job of explaining the derivation of the data behind that but they do not agree and makes for a lot of grey area across the data sets . He feels the data is still pretty good overall but not perfect but that is just a reality. John Wertis : what he hears from several people that although density based and fixed area ration zoning is mentioned a fare amount in planning it is probably the most difficult part for people to understand and asked Ms. Kiley to give it a shot. Ms . Kiley said that she would rather not, does not have the information in front of her. If someone would like to sit down with her she would be glad to sit down with the document and explain. Ms . Marino said she thinks there are concepts that are implemented in different ways and in different towns like many other things listed. This is an outline, a tool to look at and the details of how any of them will be implemented is really specific to our town and maybe some will be explored and some will not. This is a guiding document and not a zoning law change to help into the future . John Wertis : this document will be used partly as a model as you go into discussions about zoning which said is a high priority item Ms . Kiley : everything in that land use, except for development rights, are high priority and relevant to the mix John Wertis : said that he thinks it was the Free Press reporter after some conversation with Ms . Kiley and himself where he came up with a conclusion that he would like Ms . Kiley to comment about and that' s that it seems as if those approaches mite put a cap on the number of times a parcel of land could be divided in the future or existing plans seem to do that. Ms . Kiley says it does say you can divide so many parcels out of a lot. John Wertis : this is partly a problem with some of the members of the past committee in a sense when you put limitations on the subdivision of land because land is capital for a farmer; it is capital in the way he grows stuff on the land and produces and makes money but it also is capital in that he sometimes has to go to the bank and borrow money on the land or he has to sell . In practice what is being sold are the odd corners, wooded lots so that is a reservation that Mr. Wertis hopes everyone can keep in mind . Unidentified speaker: asked if districts will be dealt with individually, like the lakefront district or will that be bundled in with the entire policy. Ms . Kiley : the Town is working on a lakeshore and conservation zone instead of working on a full overhaul of the zoning document these are being worked on and the agricultural zone will be taken on next. Town of Ulysses 01 / 16/2013 3 Public Informational Mtg./Public Hearing Unidentified speaker : based on the chart he wondered if any consideration to have a farmer participate on the lakefront zoning committee Ms . Marino said that John Wertis was on that committee . The committee turned over their draft and a public informational meeting was held. A copy of the draft document is available on the Ulysses website . Ms . Kiley is pretty sure that there was no agricultural districts in the lakeshore zone. Mark Ochs : was on the original committee and has some questions ; as far as this final document plan and what the committees discussion was ; is this more of what the consultant put together and what the committee put together; how much of this document represents what was actually recommended and discussed by the committee . Ms . Kiley : in terms of the recommendations the goals and objective sections are only things that changed in the language and then the new part added was the executive summary at the very beginning, some section headers written as introductory materials and then Section 6 was the implementation on the plan maintenance . Ms . Marino : part of that was in response to information that was received by the officer at the State Agricultural Market who gave the Town the grant, who reviewed and said they wanted very much three or four targeted things that were highlighted as a priority. Ms. Marino said that everything in Section 4 which is the vision statement and the goals and the strategies put forward are what the committee wrote and what the committee pasted in February 2011 with the exact same rankings . Ms . Marino has personally reviewed documents because she has heard that this is not what the committee did. She went back to March of 2010 and it is in extremely parallel in all those structures . Mark Ochs : in Section 5 . 1 regarding the statement establishing minimum lot size of 20 or 25 acres as it relates to the minimum size of a viable farm; was that the committee Ms . Marino said yes . Mark Ochs said he must have amnesia because he just does not recall anything like that. Mr. Ochs said he would make some comments as to things in the document that seem too morphed since the committee . Ms . Marino asked if he wanted to do that at the public hearing . Mark Ochs said he would send a letter because there are several situations . Ms. Marino said that she can put the actual February 2011 adopted committee document on the web so people can compare . Unidentified speaker : if we are trying to conserve agriculture and the right to farm why can' t there be agriculture in all of the districts and have that as a priority. Ms. Kiley ; agriculture is an allowable use in the districts and the Right to Farm Law should apply to the entire Town. Robert Howarth said he too went back through the plan that was approved February 2011 by the committee nearly unanimously and what is currently on the web site and with what was approved in March 2010 . He said that word for word what is in there for the 25 acres has been in there and has no changes in three years . Monika Roth : said that we should move along the process to some extend because she thinks the really important thing is that we get an agricultural committee active and working in the Town because then a group will be active looking at this plan and working on strategies. Ms. Roth encourages Ulysses to consider moving forward because the only way things in this plan will get addressed is that you have a committee . Ms . Roth thanked the farmers for all the hours they struggled going through all the documents that Town of Ulysses 01 / 16/2013 4 Public Informational Mtg./Public Hearing had to be reviewed for this plan and coming up with the information in the plan. A lot of work, not the final that might be implemented but there is a lot in the plan to work with. Hearing no further comments or questions Ms . Marino closed the Public Informational meeting at 7 : 54 p . m . Public Hearing Ms. Marino opened the public hearing at 7 : 55 p .m . . Ms . Marino stated the propose of a public hearing is to afford the public an opportunity to make statements and comments about the proposed Town of Ulysses Agricultural and Farmland Protection Plan. Public hearings are required when a Town considers adoption of a land use plan or guidance document such as the proposed document; they are not question and answer sessions so people can just come forward and make comments and the Board will listen to them. The date of the public hearing was set by resolution of the Town Board on November 27 , 2012 and notice of the hearing was published in the Ithaca Journal on January 7 , 2013 , additionally press releases were published during the weeks of December 17 , 2012 and January 7 , 2013 ; also posters advertising the informational meeting and this public hearing in the Town Hall and different locations around Town. Articles about the plan appeared in the Free Press, the Tompkins Weekly and the draft plan has been available since the public hearing was set on the Town' s website and hard copy available in the Town Hall and at the Ulysses Library. The comments at the public hearing will be taken into consideration by the Board. A resolution was adopted by the Town Board to allow additional written comments which will be through February 1 , 2013 . Ms . Marino requested that each speaker state their name and speak clearly so as to record the comments clearly . John Wertis : said that what he had in hand is the PowerPoint presentation that Ms . Kiley gave to the TC Agriculture and Farmland Committee and he has asked a number of people to look at page 4 and the final questioned he asked was "do you see that as a factual summary of consideration or do you see it as recommendations ' . Almost entirely he gets the response as "they are recommending this" . A lot of the focus is the zoning and it is a matter of perception and there is some difference of opinions of the 20 or 25 acre lot size. Maybe it would be good to get the committee together again and take a look at things and see if that is what the committee said . Cho Chang : he was on the committee as well and he feels that it is somewhat embarrassing but he feels the same sentiment as both Mark Ochs and John Wertis that there was certain parts of the plan that he rather went "WOW where did that come from" in particular the 20 to 25 minimum acre lot size because he specifically remembers discussing that the committee felt the opposite was important that a minimum lot size be as small as possible to prevent the lose of farmland. This is especially true in the ag zone in the discussions they had because in ag zones you have very large tracks of land and spiting them up into 25 acre tracks makes it much harder for a field crop farmer to work around and a much greater lose of farmland. I do recall about talking about the fixed area and density based ratio but he does not think they discussed well enough and found it confusing and morphs like Darby suggested in the information section. These are his two biggest concerns about what we apparently voted on. Greg Reynolds : as he has attended many meetings over the years ; is a resident in the community and farming in family over 80 years he is very passionate about this . When you get older, like his grandparents, you have to sell land off and if you are restricted on how you do that could be problem. There are people in the community who do not get social security because it was not around for them . Options are important to protect for today to farm and use but it also is important for you tomorrow to be able to do what you need with it to support yourself and family. Be careful both directions because it is important for all of us ; we are in it together. Town of Ulysses 01 / 16/2013 5 Public Informational Mtg./Public Hearing Ed Gage, Seneca Valley Farms : land on Williamee Rd. and Swamp College Rd. and he has observed over the years evolution in farmland and particular the 25 acre size bothers him. What ' s going to happen is a new land owner of that parcel will put his house in the middle of the 25 acres and then he will get excited and build a pond, then plant a bunch of evergreens . When you get done you will not have anything that you can farm because he will have it 25 acre residential area that is completely converted . Bob Howarth : member of the committee — he thinks that it is important to point out that the committee spent a lot of time talking about these issues and a lot of it is complicated . He spent a lot of time going back through his notes and the minutes and when they first started talking about zoning and the density issues in October/November 2009 . They were given a lot of guidance from Bergman Association in December, who had put a lot of work in the plan, they came back in January ; all of the meetings of January and February 2010 were spent talking about it. They approved more or less the final language as it is today in March of 2010 . They came back and talked about it later and many times around because there are a lot stuff to talk about, like the comments we are hearing now and most of which he agrees with by the way. We never recommended that the 25 acre zones are the way to go and with that we did not recommend any particular way to go . What they did was to lay out a whole bunch of plans that other towns and communities have used and tried to talk some of the plus and minus were and said that it was beyond the ability of our committee to make a final recommendation in what the future should be, but these are the kinds of things the Town should be considering . The plan was a start towards doing that. Personally he thinks some of the fixed density ideas are a great way to go and he thinks they are reasonably well described in the plan sometimes and picked them up and done so in different ways and does not know if there is a perfect way to do it. The piece of land they own is 93 acres of farmland and if they ever wanted to develop it he would image picking off 5 housing lots or something of that sort and he personally would hate to divide it up into 20 or 25 acre lots . It would be better having 1 or 2 acre lots all clustered together and the rest of the land permanently protected as farmland. This is the sort of thing that the Town could encourage, which would allow farmers the ability to use the capital from their land and also provide long it term protection to the land so people 50 years from now will still have the opportunity to farm the land and he thinks we owe that to future generations as well . It is a complicated plan, the committee worked very hard on it and he thinks the Town Board should adopt it and he thinks there is a lot there to discuss . Mark Ochs : further comments on the 25 acre lot size- in reading over the plan there is definitely a lot of interest in promoting small farms, young farmers and allowing people the opportunity to get into production agriculture . The idea that it takes 25 acres to do that is not accurate in his experience . He deals with farms that are 2 acres and farms that are 2200 acres which depends upon the operation . He thinks the comment earlier from Ed Gage of Seneca Valley Farm was very appropriate and his observations as well . He has spent the last 30 years in agro business, he has his own consulting company in production agriculture . He covers a 70 county area, has an incredible interest in maintaining viable agriculture land, as agricultural . He also has an incredible interest in allowing young people an entry point. If we are going to do that we need to offer opportunities for some productive agricultural land to be sold in smaller increments, perhaps by using ultra value crops, tunnel greenhouses ; there are a lot of different farming that we can promote and the idea he sees is to develop a plan that both promotes the opportunity for the small producer and the large and not just focus on one type of farming operation. In looking at the overall acreage in the Township you have over 7,000 acres of agricultural land and is not all going to go fresh market; not in the near future in his opinion. We have to allow large dairy farms, cash grain operations, vegetable production, you pick and he would strongly encourage the plan to encourage all types of operations big and small . Vivian Rose : I come from Washington State where her home was surrounded by agricultural land and it is now surrounded by subdivisions, condos , apartments, subway shops and other things like that; in that county agricultural farming was not a priority. Small areas were cut off from farms and became houses, taxes went up and farms gradually became something that was 30 miles away from her home . She notices that this is happening all around Ithaca and so she applauds this township for looking at this Town of Ulysses 01 / 16/2013 6 Public Informational Mtg./Public Hearing and trying to figure out how to maintain an essential quality of life here . It is not, in her opinion, only the farmers who are effective by farming in the area that we live . In fact this is an essential characteristic of this area which desperately needs to be preserved because it not only gives us food and funds it also gives us a night' s sky, different kinds of air currents . Personally she would like to commend the committee and the Town Board for taking this on but would like to also ask — Will you consider ways to maintain farming in all those districts within this township and make sure the road frontage and splitting off of little farms does not change tax basis so that farming is no longer viable in this community . Look to the other values of the community that the farmers maintain, the way that they feed this community, the way that the landscape contributes to the beauty of this area, the wild life . Her experience is that we often look at one little piece and forget all of the other pieces , water quality, etc . I came tonight to say thank you to the farmers and thank you for trying to figure out how to continue this . Ms . Marino asked if there are any further comments and the Board really welcomes input, so call, send emails , send comments in writing . The Board will be looking at them when reviewing the plan. The Town does not have specific schedule for this but would really like to move this to the next step so that we could get going with having a committee that starts working on some of these things as Ithaca is successfully doing . It is not an easy issue, there is a lot to balance and they are quite cognizant of that and trying our best to have many options to consider. Thanked everyone for coming out tonight and participating . If anyone thinks they might be interested in continuing to participating further as part of a committee let us know or sign up tonight. If anyone would like to leave their contact information we can keep you apprised of how things are going . Robert Weatherby : what is the procedure or what is the next step . Ms . Marino said the comments will be reviewed, the plan will be finalized and the Town Board needs to adopt, goes to Tompkins County Agricultural Farmland Protection Board for approval , then it goes to the Commissioner of NYS Ag and Markets for approval ; when all that is done the Town will have an adopted plan that they can start implementing . The Towns first step would be getting a committee together to work with the Town Board and take beyond that. Several unidentified speakers spoke at the same time . Hearing no further comments Ms . Marino thanked everyone for coming and adjourned the public hearing at 8 : 25 p . m . .