Pine Plains board firms up zoning draft

PINE PLAINS — The Town Board held a special meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 6, to briefly discuss its proposed zoning document. The meeting lasted less than an hour.

During that time, however, a number of points were made.

The board went through a complete list of changes to the final draft of zoning laws that were made after the last public hearing, most of which were discussed at the last Town Board meeting. Those changes included an assortment of topics, which were approved by the board on Tuesday. The changes were described after the meeting by Councilman Rick Butler; they are as follows:

• Editing the purpose clauses regarding open space and property values

• Adding to the use table, including mining, and notes regarding use requirements for floating and overlay zones

• Adding a requirement to file an Agricultural Data Statement with the DC Farmland Protection Board

• Editing the affordable housing section in response to comments by the DC housing coordinator

• Refining language regarding the exclusion of land with conservation easements within an NND (New Neighborhood Development floating zone)

• Clarifying NND application and review procedures

• Clarifying and reinforcing the requirement for a pedestrian sidewalk or trail system connecting an NND to the Pine Plains hamlet

• Revising green building techniques within an NND,  to incorporate techniques into design guidelines

• Adding language allowing the Planning Board to allow (not require) endowment for maintenance of conservation easements

• Adding and standardizing expirations and extensions to site plan and special use permit approvals, adding language regarding phased development of site plans

• Revising regulations for guest/caretaker cottages based on lot size

• Incorporating revisions to non-conforming use regulations

• Revising definitions of “Lot, Conservancy� and “Membership Club, Multiple use and Social.

Butler said he was impressed with the way the process has proceeded and is looking forward to making the zoning document law.

“I think it’s a product of a wide range of views for the entire community and I don’t think any particular group or person is 100 percent pleased with the entire document. I think that’s an indication, by and large, that it’s an excellent document for the future of Pine Plains,� he said. “It’s been a long road and I’m so happy that it’s finally going to get voted on.�

The board is looking to adopt the zoning document at its regular meeting on Thursday, Oct. 15, at 7:30 p.m. at Town Hall.

Library news

Also at Tuesday’s meeting, the board went into executive session with some members of the Pine Plains Library Trustees and the Community Center Foundation regarding an agreement to increase the library’s budget.

According to Butler, “The $100,000 transfer of funds to the library trustees fulfills a long-standing verbal commitment of the Town Board to contribute proceeds of the sale of the former library building (or other funds in lieu of) to assist the library in establishing its new home. The Town Board is weighing its options in regard to the future use of the former library.�

Latest News

South Kent School’s unofficial March reunion

Elmarko Jackson was named a 2023 McDonald’s All American in his senior year at South Kent School. He helped lead the Cardinals to a New England Prep School Athletic Conference (NEPSAC) AAA title victory and was recruited to play at the University of Kansas. This March he will play point guard for the Jayhawks when they enter the tournament as a No. 4 seed against (13) Samford University.

Riley Klein

SOUTH KENT — March Madness will feature seven former South Kent Cardinals who now play on Division 1 NCAA teams.

The top-tier high school basketball program will be well represented with graduates from each of the past three years heading to “The Big Dance.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Hotchkiss grads dancing with Yale

Nick Townsend helped Yale win the Ivy League.

Screenshot from ESPN+ Broadcast

LAKEVILLE — Yale University advanced to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament after a buzzer-beater win over Brown University in the Ivy League championship game Sunday, March 17.

On Yale’s roster this year are two graduates of The Hotchkiss School: Nick Townsend, class of ‘22, and Jack Molloy, class of ‘21. Townsend wears No. 42 and Molloy wears No. 33.

Keep ReadingShow less
Handbells of St. Andrew’s to ring out Easter morning

Anne Everett and Bonnie Rosborough wait their turn to sound notes as bell ringers practicing to take part in the Easter morning service at St. Andrew’s Church.

Kathryn Boughton

KENT—There will be a joyful noise in St. Andrew’s Church Easter morning when a set of handbells donated to the church some 40 years ago are used for the first time by a choir currently rehearsing with music director Susan Guse.

Guse said that the church got the valuable three-octave set when Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center closed in the late 1980s and the bells were donated to the church. “The center used the bells for music therapy for younger patients. Our priest then was chaplain there and when the center closed, he brought the bells here,” she explained.

Keep ReadingShow less
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Penguin Random House

‘Picasso’s War” by Foreign Affairs senior editor Hugh Eakin, who has written about the art world for publications like The New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and The New York Times, is not about Pablo Picasso’s time in Nazi-occupied Paris and being harassed by the Gestapo, nor about his 1937 oil painting “Guernica,” in response to the aerial bombing of civilians in the Basque town during the Spanish Civil War.

Instead, the Penguin Random House book’s subtitle makes a clearer statement of intent: “How Modern Art Came To America.” This war was not between military forces but a cultural war combating America’s distaste for the emerging modernism that had flourished in Europe in the early decades of the 20th century.

Keep ReadingShow less