ANCRAM COMPREHENSIVE PLAN BACK ON THE MOVE

Mike McCagg

ccSCOOP News

With Art Bassin as Ancram Town Supervisor come January, one of the first items the Town Board is expected to take up is the comprehensive plan he helped shepherd through a multiyear creation process. The Democrat who defeated Republican incumbent Thomas Dias told ccSCOOP that he expects to place the comprehensive plan on the January agenda with an eye toward adopting it in the first several months he is in office. Bassin, who served as chairman of the Comprehensive Plan Committee, said he has spoken with the incoming Town Board and has the support for the plan to move ahead.

The decision to take action on the plan is a 180-degree turn from the position the Town Board took last summer when the comprehension plan was presented. In the summer, the board conducted a public hearing on the comprehensive plan and then moved in the direction of updating the town’s zoning ordinances before adopting the comprehensive plan. “That would have been an 18-month process, at least,” said Bassin.

“That’s not the way to do it,” said Bassin. “I think we should adopt the comprehensive plan first. Then once you have the plan in place, you hand it to a zoning committee and tell them to build the zoning regulations around it.”Bassin said that path of adopting the plan and then altering the zoning regulations is endorsed by longtime comprehensive planner Nan Stolzenburg of the consulting firm Community Planning & Environmental Associates.

As proposed, the comprehensive plan envisions an Ancram in 2030 that is the same as it is now. “The bottom line is the community wants Ancram in twenty years to look like what it does today.”

The plan’s vision statement makes the point clearly: “Ancram in 2030 will look and feel much like it does in 2008, maintaining its predominantly rural character. We have successfully met many of the challenges facing our community, and continue to address issues that impact us. Ancram focuses on establishing policies and programs to preserve the important elements which define its rural character, which include working agricultural landscapes, open space, a strong sense of community, well-maintained hamlets, low density housing in the countryside, small businesses serving our needs, and infrastructure appropriate for a small, rural town.”

While action on the plan will begin in January, it doesn’t mean that it will be adopted immediately. Bassin said he plans to meet with a group of “fifty or sixty residents” who signed a petition opposing the plan to hear their concerns and try to address them, as well as possibly conduct another hearing on the plan “since it’s been so long” since the Town Board hearing on the plan. The plan must also submitted for review to the County Planning Department for review.

As to the opponents of the plan, Bassin said he would like to arrange a meeting with them to address some of the concerns. Among those concerns are fear that the plan infringes on property owners’ rights and would require property owners to get approval for the color they paint their homes. “The plan would set design standards that deal with set backs and following the style of existing architecture in the town. It’s not going to say what color you can paint your house,” Bassin said.