The zoning code divides the town into three districts—Austerlitz Hamlet Zoning District; Spencertown Hamlet Zoning District, and Rural Residential District—and establishes areas where businesses and other uses can be located. For example, a conference center or retreat would only be allowed in the area of the town designed Rural Residential and would require a special use permit, while an artist studio/craft workshop or an automotive repair shop is permissible in all three designated zones, with a special use permit.
Further, the zoning regulations require site plan review for proposals that fall under business or community group designations, as well as certain land clearing proposals or those that would require special use permits. |
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The law also permits any nonconforming use that existed at the time of the zoning was adopted to continue subject to provisions.
The 75-page zoning document can be downloaded from the Town of Austerlitz website.
Lee said the major changes to the law after the regulations were first presented involved the environmental protection and ridgeline protection zones. As adopted, the ridgeline protection zone requires structures to be sited so that their roofs are located below the ridgeline or hilltop. The documents also states that “Existing vegetation shall be protected from damage during construction and land clearing shall be kept to a minimum in the area of the ridgeline. Notching out of trees and clear-cutting on a ridgeline is prohibited.”
“The purpose of ridgeline protection is to minimize the visual and environmental impacts of development along the ridgelines and maintain vistas along those lines that are unbroken by the placement of houses and other large structures that alter those vista,” the code explains.
Lee added that, in an effort to balance the needs and desires of some residents with those of the Zoning Commission, the adopted regulations reflect a less restrictive tone than what was originally proposed. “They had very strong environmental protections, but that’s one of the areas where we had to balance the needs of the residents,” she said.
Lee said the zoning regulations overall reflect a desire by the Town Board to balance residential needs and to address the concerns over zoning regulations that have been expressed for decades in the town.
“This is actually quite a balance. It was not as much regulation as some wanted, and much more than others wanted,” she said.
The adopting zoning regulations in Austerlitz has been in the works—much discussed and highly contentious—for decades. Lee said the concept of establishing zoning in Austerlitz goes back at least forty years. The Town’s first Zoning Commission, created in the 1960s or 1970s, worked for more than five years, only to have their zoning proposal put on the shelf and never adopted.
The newly adopted regulations “represent the work of dozens and dozens of people over so many years. . . . It represents the efforts of all of those people, and as such should be viewed as an inclusive proposal.”
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