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Task force named to revise Catskill town subdivision law

By Colin DeVries

CATSKILL — The overwhelming uproar and response from disgruntled builders, developers, and land owners has inspired the town of Catskill to create a committee that will explore subdivision law revisions.

Town Hall was nearly standing room only during the Aug. 5 public hearing involving a proposed amendment to the subdivision law. During that hearing several speakers aired grievances regarding the difficulty of the subdivision process and impracticalities of some of the proposed highway standards.

With the help of Greene County Planning and Economic Development, the new subdivision task force will devise new strategies to address, not only the comments made during the hearing, but potential problems going into the future.

“It’s important for us to lay out what we want to achieve and what areas we want to focus on,” said Greene County Planning and Economic Development Director Warren Hart.

One major issue Hart advised the committee to focus on was providing uniform highway specifications, both public and private. Hart suggested a compendium of highway specifications, supplemental to the law, which will serve as a “highway design manual.”

The hope is that the manual will put the guesswork out of what exactly is expected from builders and developers who wish to subdivide. It will also enable developers to budget resources according to the specifications.

Town Councilman Lewis O’Connor said that if a design standard for a private road is made then road frontage onto a town road — as the law requires now — may not be necessary.

Hart said that difficulty may lie in places with existing roads that may be substandard. That will be something the task force will review.

As a broader forethought, Hart said that as communities grow similar manuals are created on soil erosion and sedimentation control, and storm water management. Though the immediate need is for a highway design manual, it may serve as a prologue and model as the community grows for future design standard manuals.

Hart also advised that the task force revisit definitions within the law, something he claims is simple to fix but critical for potential applicants to understand.

A pre-application conference and revised application checklist were also put on the table during the committee. Hart suggested including a frequently asked question section of the application as a helpful guide in the beginning of the process.

The notion of pre-application conferences is something that could streamline the process without usurping the time at planning board meetings.

Town Planning Board Member Larry Federman said that streamlining the process by doing an pre-application review is a “win-win.”

Delivery of the entire process is another area the taskforce will be focusing on revising.

“The division of land can be pretty tough,” Hart said. “When it gets to the planning board you might have issues: there might be easements that you didn’t know about, there may be an abandoned road that they’re going to want to front off.”

O’Connor said that in order for the process to be fluid and work smoothly, the other aspects they discussed need to be smoothed out.

Hart also recommended additional training geared specifically toward subdivisions.

“The planning board should get as much training and knowledge and understanding of this topic as possible,” he said.

Planning board members, who Hart reiterated they are volunteers and may turnover frequently, could access training modules on the Web and also work with the county planning department to educate themselves on the ins and outs of subdivision.

The next meeting will look closely at highway specifications and packaging together a highway design manual, which may work together with providing clarity to the definitions within the law.

Before any changes are adopted, however, another hearing on the proposed revisions will be held and the public will be able to respond to the changes.

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