Woodstock Environmental Commission will present Tuesday, March 8 to the Town Board about a proposed Critical Environmental Area. This is an attempt to clarify some confusion and answer your questions.
The state law allows municipalities to create CEAs in order to call attention and draw attention to special places during land use planning, reviews and decisions about conservation.
A CEA refers to an area that is beneficial or harmful to human health. It also includes areas such as forests, vegetation and open space. The Town Board would place the CEA designation and it is advisory in nature.
A working group has identified a 3-mile area of large forest areas east of John Joy Road, including part of Bluestone Wild Forest. These are the largest lowland forests in the town. They are also part of a much larger forest that extends north, east, and into the towns Saugerties, Ulster, and beyond. The land is mostly private, but the town holds three parcels of it and Kingston has a piece.
Councilman Bennet Ratcliff tried to get the CEA on the Town Board agenda, as the WEC had been waiting for a public hearing to be scheduled. The Town Board received a preliminary presentation about the CEA from it in November.
From just what I’m hearing tonight, I get this sense that perhaps even some of the people here don’t fully understand what this CEA means and how it would work in practice, WEC Chair Alex Bolotov said at the February 15 Town Board meeting.
Supervisor Bill McKenna replied by suggesting that the March 8 date is used as a tutorial on CEAs. Although the CEA working group expects a June deadline for presenting a final proposal, the March 8 primer will inform the public about the designation.
Is this in conflict with your work on housing?
The towns Housing Oversight Task Force is also working on proposed changes to zoning to make housing more affordable for all. Some have suggested a stronger coordination to ensure that the CEA designation doesn’t conflict with any proposed housing.
The point of view from the Housing Oversight Task Force is that everything that is being said that is trying to be accomplished by the CEA is exactly what we’re trying to accomplish with Housing Task Force as well, trying to make it very clear what development can be done in every area of Woodstock, how that development can be managed within the environment, how to protect the environment. According to Jeff Collins, a member of the Housing Oversight Task Force, these things are very consistent. To me, it seems that having two people trying to do the exact same thing is a mistake. It’s better to have one thing doing it. That’s where I think that we need to get together and have this worked out together as a single, consistent plan.
Collins also expressed frustration at being excluded from the CEA as a property owner. “The other area that I come from is I’m one of the largest landowners in the area that’s designated for this CEA. So, from that perspective, I ask him why. What is it that makes this particular Woodstock area so valuable and so critical? Because if I don’t see it as an owner of that land, and maybe I’m missing something. Personally, I feel a little upset that someone wants me to designate my land CEA without talking to me or bringing the matter to me before this stage. It should have been done earlier. I’m just pointing that out. This has a significant effect on my ownership of the land. Not just me, but all others.
Housing Oversight Task Force welcomes dialogue
We welcome dialogue with Alex, the WEC, as well as Alex’s crew. We look forward to working with you on how your proposed code integrates with the new proposed (zoning), code, Kirk Ritchey, Housing Oversight Task Force, and Housing Committee cochair said.
When I first heard that there were concerns about bringing the WEC forward, I didn’t quite understand them. Since then, I have come to understand that there are many groups that could be consulted and that having the time until June makes sense to me. Task force member Judith Kerman stated that she was a Planning Board member. It makes sense to have the Housing Oversight Task Force proposals in that time frame.
Housing and environmental concerns can coexist
I was clear in saying that the housing crisis is my number one priority in town since years. I’ve run on it, I campaigned on it, McKenna said. And that doesn’t mean that I don’t take seriously maintaining our environment. I look back today at the number of things we’ve achieved since I first got elected, and there are a lot of good things. So I’m able to focus on the housing, because I feel comfortable, not that we can’t continue to do an even better jobBut Woodstock has always looked out for the environment. There are many people doing this. And again, it’s not that I think they exclude each other. We need to make sure the public understands how they fit together.
The CEA proposal can be found on the WEC section at the Town of Woodstock’s website. https://townwoodstock.digitaltowpath.org:10111/content/Boards/View/2.