Barely a month has passed since the Town of Poughkeepsie enacted a partial moratorium on residential development, but some alterations to the building ban are already on the horizon.
Next week, the Town Board will hear applications from two subdivision developers seeking variances that would exempt them from the ban. And next month, the board will consider a provision to stiffen penalties for moratorium violators.
The moratorium puts a halt on approvals for multifamily housing developments and subdivisions larger than 10 lots until February of 2006. On June 22, the Town Board’s meeting agenda will include hearings on a pair of potential subdivisions whose owners want the town to make exceptions to that rule.
Fifty-two units planned
One applicant is Inwood Lake, LLC, developer of The Park at Inwood Lake, a 52-unit subdivision on East Cedar Avenue. According to attorney Jon Adams, the developer has already been approved for a project, but is seeking to modify that project without increasing the number of units, “to provide a significantly superior housing unit … These realigned units will have better visual impacts and will have, based upon an analysis submitted to the Planning Board, a much more favorable fiscal impact for the town, the Fairview Fire District and the Hyde Park Central School District.”
In a letter to the town outlining his client’s case for the variance, Adams wrote that while the approved subdivision, a development of attached houses, was “directed more toward investors who use the unit for rental housing and student housing,” the new plan would be for more affluent residents and empty-nesters looking for smaller homes.
Adams said that if denied a variance, Inwood Lake would consider going ahead with the originally approved plan, which he claimed was less beneficial to the town.
Town Planner Laura Wojtowicz said the previous Inwood Lake plan was granted final approval in 2002 and the final map had been filed with the Dutchess County Clerk.
She said a recent change in the property’s ownership likely led to the new plans, which she characterized as more of a “redo” than a modification to the existing plans. “It’s a whole different layout,” she said.
‘Ridiculous process’
The other applicants are Clinton Kershaw and Douglas Nieters, who own a 145-acre plot at the corner of Bower and Van Wagner Roads, which they are seeking to divide into 11 lots for single-family housing. A nine-month delay would threaten to drive away the potential buyers they have lined up, they claimed in a letter to the town.
Kershaw, a native of Clinton Corners, noted this week that the property is zoned for one-acre lots, and even with 45 acres of wetlands on the property, he could have crammed in many more houses than he ultimately decided to. “If I was a developer,” he said, “I wouldn’t have chosen not to – especially if I knew what I was going to go through.”
Kershaw said he views the moratorium as the latest obstacle in a land-use process choked with red tape. “It’s a ridiculous process,” he said. “They’ve thrown so many stumbling blocks in our way, and they’re doing it again.” He has been working on the subdivision plans for three-and-a-half years, he said.
The irony, according to Kershaw, is that he originally invested in the property to fix up the existing house and live in it, but couldn’t afford the taxes – which he said were actually higher for the mostly vacant parcel than they would be for the subdivision. “This town discourages vacant land,” he said.
Kershaw now lives in Hyde Park, while Nieters lives in the house on the 145-acre property. That house will be parceled off into a 50-acre lot, Kershaw said, with 10 houses planned for the remaining 95 acres.
About half of those houses won’t even be visible from the street, Kershaw said, and all but a quarter-acre of the wetlands will be left undisturbed. “I don’t like a house next door to me,” he said.
‘They’re not going away'
Both Adams and Kershaw claimed in letters to the Town Board that their projects were likely to be approved this month, meaning they just missed the deadline to beat the moratorium.
Wojtowicz disagreed with that assessment this week. “It’s hard to say that that is true,” she said. “I can’t say they’re a month away.” Both applicants still had a fair amount of work to do before completing their applications, she said, and neither was at the point where quick approval was a sure thing.
Town Councilman Stephan Krakower (R-Ward 5) has been one of the Town Board’s most outspoken advocates for a tougher moratorium while the town updates its master plan. He sits on the master plan review committee along with Dominic Seminara (R-Ward 2) and a number of other officials, and said an updated master plan draft could be made public this summer.
Krakower said he was “disappointed,” but not surprised, that people were already seeking variances from the moratorium. “What is it they can’t do in the next nine months?” he said this week. “There’s got to be a real pressing need, a project there’s a real need for in the town, and a very good reason why they can’t wait until the end of the moratorium.”
Still, Krakower said, each plea for exemption should be considered on a case-by-case basis, with regard to the town’s goals for future development. That was his reasoning in opposing amendments in May that allow developers to continue the formal environmental review process while the moratorium is in effect, he said.
Those amendments were pushed for by two large-scale developers: Ginsburg Development Corp., currently planning a 469-unit subdivision at the Casperkill Country Club, and Hudson Heritage, developing a long-term plan to develop the abandoned Hudson River Psychiatric Center into a massive mixed-use complex.
“They’ve made a major investment in that land,” Krakower said. “They’re not going away.”
Krakower also pushed for stiffer penalties for people who violate the moratorium, either by illegally advancing projects toward approval or doing work on the development sites without permission. As currently written, such violations carry a penalty of $500 or up to six months of jail time for each week the moratorium is violated.
At its July 6 meeting, the Town Board will hold a public hearing on an amendment that will declare violation of the moratorium a misdemeanor, punishable by jail time or a fine of $1,000 to $5,000, or both, for each day of violation.
Krakower said the changes would give the moratorium law “more teeth.” The smaller penalty, he said, could be considered part of the cost of business for a large developer such as Ginsburg. “There wasn’t enough of a deterrent for developers to not violate the moratorium,” he said. Were the amendment enacted, he added, “If (developers) were to violate the moratorium, there would be a price to pay.”