Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutCAC Minutes - 12_14_21Town of Danby Conservation Advisory Council Minutes Page 1 of 6 Town of Danby Conservation Advisory Council (CAC) Minutes of Video Conference (Zoom) Meeting on Tuesday, December 14, 2021 Danby, New York Council Members present: Clare Fewtrell (chair), Joel Gagnon, Margaret Corbit, Mary Woodsen, Jonathan Zisk, Brittany Lagaly, Don Schaufler Council Members absent: none, Schaufler experienced technical difficulties that kept him from participating fully. Others present: Elizabeth Keokosky (secretary), Ronda Roaring (Danby resident), Katharine Hunter (prospective returning CAC member), Brad Rauch (a prospective new CAC member) Zoom Meeting was officially called to order at 7:08. Deletions or Additions to Agenda: Privilege of the Floor (PoF): Roaring: noted that CAC may have problems trying to get an easement with her property, which is already in a trust and which may require speaking to her attorney. Rauch: has been reading minutes and is interested in becoming a CAC member. He currently is a Dryden resident but will be moving to Danby in the Spring Approval Minutes MOTION for November 9, 2021 Corbit moved to approve Zisk seconded Unanimous approval. REPORTS AND UPDATES from agenda. 1. Status of finding new members – Fewtrell Town of Danby Conservation Advisory Council Minutes Page 2 of 6 Brad Rauch is interested in becoming a member when he gets Danby residency; Katherine Hunter has applied. 2. Status of annual easement monitoring and placing easement signs – Don Schaufler, Jonathan Zisk & Margaret Corbit Schaufler is writing reports on easements that have been inspected. Curtis and Palmer properties are still left for a monitoring visit. Nothing has been done with easement signs, which are now in the town hall. In response to Fewtrell’s query, Zisk said that he would take responsibility for putting them up and check with Schaufler who, due to computer and internet difficulties, could neither see nor hear what was happening in the meeting at that point. 3. Status of Timber Harvesting Law – Don Schaufler & Jonathan Zisk Zisk said the implementation is in Schaufler’s hands right now. Since Schaufler was unreachable at that point, Zisk agreed, at Fewtrell’s urging, to follow up where Schaufler had left off. In particular, rechecking with people asked to give their feedback to current draft of the law, but whose responses were not sufficiently documented. These people were mainly from the Danby Highway Department – Jack and Laura Shawley , Soil and Water – Angel Hinikle, and timber harvesting companies -- Bruce Richards. Previous complaints raised to the Town Board were that the Highway Department had not been included. (Bruce Richards’ comments were lost in transmission and need to be retrieved). 4. Easement updates: proposed Roaring Easement (Margaret Corbit), proposed Stein Easement (Brittany Lagaly) & others (Clare Fewtrell) Roaring Easement: Corbit brought the group up to date on the Roaring easement. She noted that the CAC’s consensus was that appropriate use zones on that property should be a Restricted Forest Use Zone and a Residential and Active Use Zone. Corbit said that she would do a better job of expressing the importance of the creek running to the south which is a riparian zone that may be covered by the new zoning ordinance, if it goes through, but also could be additionally protected in the easement. She opened up a general discussion about whether more space needs to be allowed around a building for septic or gardens – 10 or 15 feet around Town of Danby Conservation Advisory Council Minutes Page 3 of 6 building for maintenance. People need to think more about how they want to define their Residential and Active Use Zone. Also Fewtrell asked how we should handle Roaring’s revocable trust; Gagnon will ask Guy, the Town Attorney. Roaring felt it unfair that the Town Board could change things after the homeowner has spent money and time negotiating the proposed easement with the CAC. She wanted more involvement of the Town Lawyer from the start. Fewtrell said that there was no evidence that the Town Board had turned down any easements, and since it was their responsibility to make sure the easements were enforced they had a right to do so. Lagaly Easement: Lagaly thanked everyone who walked her land. She had used Wimsatt easement as a model for the Baseline Report. Her confusion about Schedule B and and the Baseline Report prompted a discussion on how to divide up the easement information between various schedules and documents. Some do duplicate each other’s information and there is some repetition in Schedules B and C and easement text. Gagnon said that the Baseline Report should be actually called the Baseline Monitoring Report since that it is what it is used for. Should conservation values and zones be included in the Baseline Monitoring Report as well as in the easement? Zisk and Fewtrell like them there as a point of reference. Fewtrell was trying to keep different documents to a minimum so thought that Schedule B should simply be the Baseline Monitoring Report. Corbit volunteered to go through documents and compile them in a outline so the group could decide what they wanted where. Lagaly had made maps from Tompkins County’s publicly available GIS mapping software, and added them. Both Gagnon and Fewtrell complimented her on the extraordinarily comprehensive Baseline Documentation. Fewtrell said that the detailed description of zones should be in Schedule C and didn’t need to be in the Schedule B, but the maps were useful there. Lagaly said her Residential and active Use Zone was already generously defined. She uses all the zones in her easement. Town of Danby Conservation Advisory Council Minutes Page 4 of 6 On a more general topic, Gagnon reported that NY Governor Hochul had approved and signed the law enabling Danby to abate property taxes in exchange for conservation easements, including temporary easements. Now it remains to be seen how this authorization is going to be developed and written into local law. Zisk mentioned that he had been on the tax planning working group (which had originated the idea) and he would be interested in being part of this, but he noted that the tax group might be biased. Gagnon explained that the appropriate role of any group would be to inform the Planner, who with the Town Attorney will be writing the law. Even then, the law still had to be approved by the Town Board. Zisk suggested that Town Planner West could put together a “menu” of “options” that a working group could choose from. Gagnon summarized the goal as how to offer tax abatement in exchange for conservation easements. Fewtrell noted that, however it was done, CAC wants to be part of the process. 5. Report and Status of Agricultural Presentation Series – Elizabeth Keokosky Keokosky reported that she has 3 speakers so far for her third presentation – Scott Doyle from the Tompkins County Planning Committee; Monika Roth, formerly from CCE; and Molly Johnston-Heck from American Farmland Trust, who was working on getting a younger generation of farmers on land. Keokosky also wanted to include information on Incubator projects. She was trying to get ahold of Groundswell, but Barb Neal of Tioga CCE also had an incubator project she could speak about. She felt pleased with speakers she had lined up and thought the presentation was coming together well. Her other concern was advertising and she asked about writing to all rural Conservation Advisory Councils in Tompkins County – if they exist (after- note: They don’t. She ended up writing to town clerks). Zisk said that Soil and Water might also be a conduit to interested people. Keokosky noted that Danby doesn’t have many large farmers but we do have people interested in doing small scale organic farming. This presentation may have wide-spread interest. For advertising, also writing for DAN and CCE -- other sources of advertising suggested. Keokosky noted that she was dissatisfied with resolution of Zoom recordings of previous presentations produced on Town of Danby Conservation Advisory Council Minutes Page 5 of 6 YouTube. Zisk offered that you could upload at a higher resolution in a way that improves this. Will pass on to Town Clerk. 6. Website Update – Margaret Corbit Fewtrell said that town clerk and assistant clerk have still not loaded CAC files, but Corbit said that they are still getting used to using the new website software. She said that the new system is very complicated and that she doesn’t think it will be done till the end of Spring. Town Planner, David West, has to be Town Clerk’s priority since it is legally required that he display certain documents. Fewtrell expressed her frustration with the lack of information available on website for people interested in easements. 7. Status of Native Plants talk – Brittany Lagaly Lagaly said that February 10th would be the date of her talk. Corbit asked for a one-sentence description for her DAN article, which was loosely, “Gardening with Native plants beneficial to wildlife as a replacement for more traditional horticultural species”. Lagaly will decide on a formal title and give it to the Town Clerk. 8. Discussion of Solar Panels: opportunities and regulations? – Elizabeth Keokosky Keokosky had no specifics to offer, but just wanted to encourage the group to think about this topic and educate themselves. She had heard about options for setting up solar panels to make them higher off the ground to allow plants to grow under them (and have more sun) or set further apart to allow a tractor to have passage through them or to rent sheep to mow under them. More imaginative ideas might be available. Gagnon said that the town has passed a law concerning solar on a residential level but large scale installations had not been anticipated There had been a public hearing on the current proposed installation. There had already been a re-delineation of wetlands in that project since the Biden administration had revised the Trump administration rules. Russ Nitchman had previously planted the land to attract deer. Currently the solar siting law considers trees that need to be removed. Keokosky noted that a County Planner had mentioned that using a solar farm is a Town of Danby Conservation Advisory Council Minutes Page 6 of 6 conservation technique since it prevents development but can be removed at any time. 9. Zoning update –Joel Gagnon Gagnon announced that transfer of development rights requires a generic environmental impact statement so it is going to be pulled out of draft zoning proposal until that can happen. The County Planning Department also has to review it. They have 30 days to make a recommendation and they want all 30. But the moratorium on development will not be extended. There will be a new public hearing on draft zoning proposal on January 4th. The proposal will be dealt with as quickly as possible after the end of the year. Serious suggestions for modification should be given by the December 22 town board meeting. Before the meeting ended, Mary Woodson brought up that she wanted to start an easement on her property. Fewtrell said that people then needed to walk the property. Woodsen added that the property had brambles and was difficult to walk through, but intrepid Corbit, Zisk, and Schaufler offered to walk it. Zisk was assigned to organize a walking date. Lagaly also volunteered to join. Fewtrell wished everyone a happy new year and congratulated them on a very productive year –which, in turn, led to some discussion of annual report. There was no Executive session Next Meeting via Zoom is on January 11th 2022 at 7p.m. Adjournment at 9:14 _____________________________________________ Submitted by Elizabeth Keokosky (Secretary)