HomeMy WebLinkAboutCAC Minutes - 04_14_20Town of Danby Conservation Advisory Council Minutes Page 1 of 9
Town of Danby Conservation Advisory Council (CAC)
Minutes of Video Conference (Zoom) Meeting on
Tuesday, April 14, 2020
Danby, New York
Council Members present: Clare Fewtrell (chair), Joel Gagnon, Don
Schaufler, Mary Woodsen, Ruth Sherman, Jonathan Zisk, Katharine Hunter
Council Members absent: George Adams,
Others present: Jason Haremza (Town Planner), Ronda Roaring (Danby
resident),
Zoom Meeting opened at 7:46 pm and was called to order at 7:50.
(The meeting began late because a meeting of the Board of Zoning
Appeals, which Zoom host (Haremza) was also hosting, lasted much longer
than expected.)
Deletions or Additions to Agenda – None
Privilege of the Floor - None
Approve Minutes MOTION for March 10, 2012
Gagnon moved to approve
Hunter seconded
Unanimous approval, Sherman abstained
Reports and Updates
1) Planning Group and Open Space Inventory– Gagnon giving
update
Conservation Working Group (a Planning Group subgroup) met on
April 7th – next meeting Wednesday, April 15th – and is trying to
identify priority conservation areas in the town. At Haremza’s
Town of Danby Conservation Advisory Council Minutes Page 2 of 9
suggestion, they are looking at criteria for Open Space using the
Natural Resources Inventory as a starting point, but also giving
further thought to other important criteria for identifying conservation
areas – choosing 3 criteria. Haremza is still collating results, He said
there were 10 responses - which he will send out tomorrow.
Discussion followed on clarifying what this working group was doing
and how it related to CAC responsibilities and goals: Fewtrell said
that CAC had tried to work on Open Space Inventory (OSI) criteria
and didn’t get far. Now another group was working on it, but this
didn’t mean that CAC should not be involved, and members of CAC
had been attending these Conservation Working Group sessions.
She felt CAC had plenty of other tasks to work on. Gagnon explained
that responsibility for defining OSI criteria had been expanded to
include as many people as wanted to participate, as well as CAC
members and other board members who wish to be involved.
Gagnon said he felt CAC and Conservation Working Group would
augment each other and pool resources. When he asked if others
felt the same way, several people replied that they “hadn’t thought
about it.”
Zisk said that what Adams and he were doing with Haremza on GIS
was more the “nuts and bolts of it.” What they were doing in the
Working Group was broader – Haremza’s asking people for their
choice of criteria was a little bit like weighting – if everyone chose
their top 3, then overlapped choices would be given more weight.
Zisk wanted to know what would happen to CAC GIS work if OSI
went to Planning Group? He and Gagnon agreed that there was
overlap, at the same time agreeing with Fewtrell that in their limited
amount of time why have two groups do the same thing. Fewtrell
saw no problems with going ahead on GIS, she remarked that she
had only felt uncomfortable leading CAC on OSI because she
couldn’t see where it was going.
PoF: Secretary Keokosky raised question as to whether the new
group was taking over CAC’s mission, and would this interfere with
CAC trajectory of becoming a Conservation Board if they decided do
this? Fewtrell did not feel this was a problem and said the CAC could
approve it (resulting OSI). Keokosky suggested she might want to
articulate this relationship with the Conservation Working Group (for
Town of Danby Conservation Advisory Council Minutes Page 3 of 9
working on open space inventory) into some kind of motion. Fewtrell
deferred to Gagnon who said that he had thought they had already
decided not to pursue becoming a Conservation Board. Fewtrell
agreed and saw no reason for a motion. Gagnon said that both
groups could do the same thing. For the benefit of new members
who had not been involved in this discussion, Fewtrell explained that
since an OSI was required before we could be eligible to become a
board, it did not make sense to raise this issue again until we had an
OSI. Gagnon said that an OSI was needed as part of the planning
process no matter who created it.
PoF: Roaring stated that her impression was that the original goals of
the Planning group were related to the Town’s Comprehensive Plan
and the Zoning Ordinance. Gagnon disagreed. Hesaid that the task
of identifying the priority areas in the town to conserve needs to come
first and the people in the CAC are probably the most qualified and
certainly the most interested in helping to identify those priority
conservation areas. Combining forces with others interested will
make it more likely that important areas are not missed, according to
Gagnon.
Fewtrell said that the important thing was whether the CAC people
who were working on the Conservation Working Group were happy to
do it that way. Zisk was OK with it, and said members of the working
group could report back to the CAC. Fewtrell said that the CAC was
not divorcing itself from the OSI. Or as Zisk said, “Delegating it,”
Haremza agreed that there was a lot of overlap and groups would
“pollinate” each other. He didn’t see them working at cross-purposes
but ultimately he would defer to each respective group and what they
would like to focus on. Fewtrell said she was not seeing the Planning
Group coming to a conclusion soon, and, though Gagnon wants to
move ahead quickly, he said the group was still feeling it’s way as to
how to go about establishing a process. He felt the criteria in the
Natural Resource Inventory (NRI) were inadequate to define the
known special places within the town. He hopes to find additional
criteria. Zisk agreed; he said that Jake Brenner really had felt he had
created
only “boiler plate” descriptors.
Town of Danby Conservation Advisory Council Minutes Page 4 of 9
Gagnon said the first round was a compendium of available data.
The bigger question was what was missing? What can help us home
in on what is really important? And how many of those things do we
have data for?
Fewtrell suggested we bring the discussion to closure and
encouraged people to go to tomorrow’s Conservation Working Group
meeting. She asked the other CAC members “how many people
here are happy with that?” and “is it reasonable to stop discussion at
this point?” Gagnon and Zisk agreed. Hunter said the first step was
to see what was missing in the Natural Resource Inventory (NRI).
Gagnon agreed, and said another starting point was to find out what
criteria were used to identify a ‘unique natural area”. The discussion
was closed with no additional comment from others.
2) New Easements – Fewtrell and Sherman
Fewtrell noted that the group had started crafting a conservation
easement for her property as a teaching example, despite it not being
a “prime” property. She noted that Sherman’s property was a much
more desirable property and perhaps that would be a better teaching
tool. Sherman was concerned that covid-19 makes it difficult to do a
property walk – can’t approach people – (Woodsen had also noted
earlier that masks and social distancing and coronavirus makes it
difficult to proceed on easements.) Gagnon observed that there is no
reason both easements couldn’t be written up simultaneously.
3) Progress on Listing Easement Prospects
Woodsen said that there was not much to be done now with
easements when you have to wear a mask and stand 6 feet apart.
Fewtrell said that there were other things members can do apart from
approaching people. She felt that now is the time to put our “ducks in
a row”. We should generate a list of people whose property fits with
open space criteria and work on a rationale for why people should get
an easement – what are the benefits?
Gagnon took a digression here into the Tax Policy Working Group –
another Planning Group subgroup. They’ve had 3 or 4 meetings.
Last Sunday’s conclusion was that the Town ought to be approaching
State Legislature for tax abatements for easements. Other towns
Town of Danby Conservation Advisory Council Minutes Page 5 of 9
have defined temporary easements such as 15-30 years (with 35%
tax deduction) or 50-75 years (with 85% tax deduction) – as well as
permanent easements with a 90% reduction. People might be more
willing to sign up for a limited time instead of a commitment forever.
Fewtrell asked is that what we really want? Gagnon said the working
committee needs to decide on that. Then they need to go to the
Town Board for approval. He noted that this kind of approach has
been used by several towns already so that the template is there.
Fewtrell raised the point that other people in the municipality don’t like
additional tax abatements. Gagnon said that most of the tax base is
in buildings, not in land. But now that land is running $5000/acre the
percentage of taxes from land have gotten bigger than it used to be.
Ten years ago if you exempted all of undeveloped land if would have
been less than a 10% decrease of taxes for the Town. But it would
be useful to do a study of the tax sources to see how overall tax
income would be affected. Fewtrell asked who could do that, and
Gagnon suggested Ted Crane could easily do it – and he is also inthe
Tax Policy Working Group. Land with conservation easements is a
considerably smaller subset than all undeveloped land, and the tax
abatement is just a portion of the tax paid. Gagnon felt it would be “a
modest impact,” but still provide tax relief for property owners.
Fewtrell was in favor of proceeding with that research, and asked for
a report back.
Gagnon reminded the group that there are now Planning Group
pages on the Town website with excellent notes from the meetings
and encouraged more people to become engaged. He said they can
“jump in at any point.”
Returning to discussion of the Fewtrell and Sherman easements,
Fewtrell said that they could begin by coming up with descriptions of
property, and when the CAC is able to walk Sherman’s property, they
could follow through with that.
Gagnon suggested that since there were enough new CAC members
who were not fully conversant with easements now and how they
were structured in Danby, that it might be worth spending some time
in a CAC meeting just reviewing the history of the Danby
Town of Danby Conservation Advisory Council Minutes Page 6 of 9
conservation easement program and why and what it is, followed by
walking through the process involved in negotiating and writing an
easement. Fewtrell asked Gagnon if he would lead that discussion.
4) Easement demystifying cover page – Woodsen
Fewtrell noted that Woodsen had agreed to write a cover page
interpreting the legalese of the easement. Woodsen explained that
she was swamped until mid-June, and asked for someone else to
take the lead on this.
It was agreed that, since Gagnon is the person with the institutional
memory, as part of educating new CAC members he will talk about
how Danby easements became established at our May meeting.
Fewtrell would write up the CAC member’s walk-through of her
property, which includes why property would be appropriate for an
easement. The Fewtrell and Sherman properties will then be used as
teaching tools for new CAC members - to learn by doing.
Fewtrell encouraged all to look at the documents concerning
easements on the CAC website and suggested that other people
might take a stab at writing a cover page after Gagnon’s presentation.
5) Easement Signs, Brochures and Posters
Sherman had put together a professional-looking graphic design for
an easement sign based on (secretary) Keokosky’s rough suggestion
of the outline of the Town of Danby with some rural identification
features inside like a barn and trees. Fewtrell suggested minor
changes but thought it turned out well. Members discussed it. –
some didn’t like Gambrel roof barn design, wanted trees other than
conifers, wanted letters bolder, wanted it simpler. Fewtrell suggested
the words “Private Property No Public Access” be in larger letters and
that a darker shade of green should be used. Fewtrell was
enthusiastic, but it was difficult to get consensus. Schaufler said that
owners of easement-protected properties have a stake in it too and
that the design has to appeal to them. Woodsen wanted more time
thinking it over. PoF: Roaring didn’t like it and Gagnon challenged
her to come up with an alternative, which she agreed to do.
Discussion was wide-ranging but in the end Fewtrell said Sherman
should go ahead and work on refinements to her design based on the
suggestions made.
Town of Danby Conservation Advisory Council Minutes Page 7 of 9
6) Management Plans for the Town-Owned Properties (Water
District and Deputron Hollow) – Gagnon
Gagnon reported that Management Plans are mandated by State law
but W. Danby Water District and Deputron Hollow were the only
significant Danby owned-properties that needed them. So far this
has not been done. Both properties have been walked and a species
diversity inventory done but this needs to be tracked down. PoF:
Roaring said that she and Schaufler had done some inventory of the
properties in the past. She said that Bob Wesley had done a species
list. She had given it to the CAC’s secretary, who told her it was in a
file on the Laserfiche server. (after-note: Fewtrell requested
secretary to resend folder link to CAC members, which has been
done since this meeting.) Gagnon said the Deputron Hollow property
had been acquired in the 1920s. The W. Danby property had been
acquired in the late ‘60s when the water district was created. Gagnon
explained that the Danby property on Deputron Hollow is in two
parcels on opposite sides of the road. The one down-slope of the
road is currently under an ownership cloud since Rodney Palmer –
(the uncle of Eric Palmer, who has a Danby easement on the corn er
of Deputron and Marsh Roads) - thinks he owns it and pays taxes on
it. Rodney Palmer and the town need to clarify ownership for this
second piece of the property. At one time it was suggested that the
town relinquish rights to R. Palmer if he created an easement there,
but this has not been pursued. PoF: Roaring says we need to do a
formal search with T.J. Miller, who surveyed the other parcel.
The management plan for Deputron Hollow was to leave it alone, but
it has not been written up. The Water District property was more
complicated but there was no impediment to completing a
management plan on that property.
Some process has been made on format. There was an outline.
Secretary was going to check if it was on Lasherfiche.
PoF: Roaring volunteered to write up a draft. Gagnon mentioned how
the ash problem had waylaid the discussion and that invasive species
had not been addressed. Fencing deer out of a portion of the
property to illustrate the impact of deer on the forest had also been
considered.
Town of Danby Conservation Advisory Council Minutes Page 8 of 9
Fewtrell was looking for closure and she suggested that at least a
simple management plan be put together; elaboration can happen in
the future. Schaufler said that basically a plan should have a
description, possible actions, and recommended actions. Roaring
added that a good thing to include now is information on slopes.
Fewtrell asked Schaufler and Roaring to work together to produce
management plans for both properties.
7) Pipeline and Herbicide Spraying – Hunter
As an aside, Hunter began by displaying a letter that she received
from the Land Trust of her family’s land announcing an annual
monitoring trip, before and after, and suggested we use it as a model
for our own inspections.
On the pipelines, she explained that she received mail from
Enterprise (their pipeline crossed her property) and she had called
Enterprise and had reached a woman in Texas, with whom she had
established a relationship. She learned that Enterprise doesn’t spray
anywhere – only on top of block valves. There are two of them - at
Mallard Hill and German Cross, neither of which is in Danby. Her
question was what do you do to get on their list for no-spray.
PoF:Roaring said to ask for it in writing.
In reference to Hunter’s letter, Zisk asked do we need stewards like
Finger Lakes Land Trust? For the benefit of the new members,
Fewtrell explained that members of CAC do the monitoring. It hadn’t
happened every year, but this past year the four easement properties
were inspected.
PoF:Roaring noted that Hunter had a good point with the letter. An
announcement letter before and a thank you letter afterward is a
good idea. Members agreed, and Fewtrell asked Katharine to send
copies of the letters to everyone.
8) Danby Highway department and classes with invasive species
Gagnon mentioned that Sherman did connect with the highway
department but now the Covid-19 distancing was keeping the class
from going forward.
Town of Danby Conservation Advisory Council Minutes Page 9 of 9
There was no Executive session
Fewtrell concluded by reminding members of their homework and thanking
them for patience with the Zoom session.
• She and Sherman – easements
• Sherman will work on signs – others can send suggestions
• Schaufler and Roaring – management plans
• Plan for May meeting with chunk of time on Gagnon’s explanation of
easements.
Next Meeting is through Zoom on May 12 at 7p.m.
Adjournment
The meeting ended at 9:45 p.m.
_____________________________________________
Submitted by Elizabeth Keokosky (Secretary)