Dryden comprehensive plan workshop sparks community conversation

On Jan. 20, the town of Dryden held the first of three planned virtual community workshops centered around updating the town’s 2005 comprehensive plan, garnering significant discussion from residents.

After a yearlong process full of stakeholder focus groups, public presentations and a community survey, members of the town Planning Board — the Steering Committee for the project — developed preliminary goals and strategies to address community needs, according to the town’s website.

The workshops are the next step in this process, meant to solicit feedback on the draft goals and strategies from community members. The three workshops — held Jan. 20, 26 and 27 — focus on six thematic areas identified by town staff: affordable housing, land conservation, transportation, walkable communities, economic development and energy sustainability.

Jan. 20’s workshop centered around land conservation and affordable housing. For the land conservation portion of the workshop, many participants emphasized the importance of preserving farmland specifically.

“If the farmers aren’t making a living, you’re going to lose the farmers and then you’re going to lose farmland,” said Craig, who did not provide his last name. “So, whatever can be done to support them, whether it’s a farmers market or something else, that’s got to be done if we want to continue to have farms in our community.”

Geisler spoke to that goal in more detail.

“If we want to make use of the 25% of land in Dryden that is farmland, and not see it all consolidated into larger and larger and fewer dairy farms, I think we have to figure out ways to fund small and diversified farming that is environmentally sound and progressive,” he said. “This is a town with a lot of good farmland, particularly on its north and eastern side. And that would be a very satisfactory use for it.”

Another participant, Evan — who also didn’t provide his last name — proposed a different solution. As he explained, the town has a Right-to-Farm law that requires anybody purchasing a home to sign a document acknowledging that their home is in an agricultural district. However, Evan said, this document can get lost in the dozens of documents the buyer signs at the closing.

“If there was some way that we could be encouraging the realtors to make sure that everybody understands that when they’re purchasing a house, before they get to the signing, … they are in an ag district and there will be ag activities going on in the neighborhood, that would be one way of helping out the farmers to stay sustainable, and making it easier to get along with their neighbors if [they know] who their neighbors are when they move in,” he said.

Other residents drew attention to the importance of protecting natural areas, particularly waterways. Resident C. Dougherty connected this importance back to development.

“High-density development causes flooding/runoff to existing residents and impacts/displaces wildlife in sensitive areas,” they said in the comments to the livestream.

Another participant, Todd Bittner, said that it’s important to identify and plan for threats to natural areas, but more is needed.

“What we’re seeing right now is a significant increase in precipitation events, and those flood events not only impact our open space and conserved lands, wildlife but also our built infrastructure,” he said. “So, if we say, ‘yeah, we’re going to identify them and plan for them, but not try to work to address them,’ it’s only half of the solution.”

For the affordable housing piece, the Steering Committee outlined four main community concerns: lack of housing choice, high cost of housing, limited housing supply and deteriorating housing stock.

To diversify housing choices, the Steering Committee proposed strategies like increasing the housing supply, particularly housing for seniors and single families, setting minimum requirements for affordability for new construction and increasing density in certain areas.

Resident Charles Geisler voiced his support for the focus on a broad range of housing options.

“We know that the demand for rental structures and multifamily homes and units is significant, not to mention co-op, senior, family housing, community land trust and other kinds of group housing,” he said. “I think our zoning needs to catch up, and I hope that’s reflected in the new plans.”

Town Council member James Skaley added that promoting homeownership should be part of the affordable housing conversation.

“Much of the developments that have been going on recently are promoting our rental units,” he said. “And oftentimes, the rental units are excessively high for low-income people to afford. So, this affordability question is tied up with the issue of whether or not you can develop both for homeownership and also for affordable rentals.”

Two other strategies brought up by participants were reducing the regulatory burden of zoning and increasing flexibility for developers.

“Very few subdivisions get done in the town of Dryden of any size whatsoever because they’re just outrageously expensive to do,” said resident Bruno Schickel. “And in fact, in the town of Dryden, there’s been a long history of these projects not being approved. So, I think that the risk factor is enormous, and I think it pushes people away.”

Another goal discussed was to remove barriers to affordability in existing zoning, for which the Steering Committee proposed strategies like expanding areas that are designed for nodal development (development in existing or new centers at a higher density than the surrounding area) and allowing for smaller lot sizes.

The subject of nodal development prompted discussion among several participants, like Legislator Martha Robertson.

“The whole idea of nodal development is, really, you need to concentrate your built environment so that you can still account for people’s needs but protect ag land and natural areas,” she said. “So, I don’t agree with just allowing anything to be built anywhere.”

When discussing new housing developments, several participants shared the importance of energy efficiency to reduce overall costs.

“There are various programs at the county and the state and federal level to prioritize green development, but especially when we’re talking about investment in housing improvement, we need to be talking about green development, prioritizing that,” said resident Kathy Russell.

Participant Joe Wilson also voiced his support for green development.

“Green development would make housing more affordable by reducing the occupants’ utility bills,” he said. “Promoting energy-efficient renovation of existing housing stock would also result in more affordable housing by reducing utility bills.”

Sam Gordon, senior project manager for the development of the town’s new comprehensive plan, connected the discussions of housing development and the protection of natural areas.

“There is a balance between encouraging higher-density development, protecting open space systems, protecting sensitive systems [and] protecting your waterways,” Gordon said. “So, this is where we will be identifying the appropriate areas to allow that sort of development to take place and precluding it from places where you may really have sensitivity.”

After the workshop, Gordon said that he was pleased by the responses the session received.

“This was meant to spark conversation and dialogue,” he said. “We don’t want to come into your community and tell you exactly what you want to do. We really wanted to hear this kind of dialogue, hear from you where you want to go. And I think we got a real flavor for that tonight, which is going to help us to craft the plan that makes the most sense for the community that you want to be.”

At the time of this publication, there is only one remaining workshop — economic development and energy sustainability, which is scheduled for Jan. 27 at 6 p.m.

Community members can access materials for the sessions through the project website
(www.dryden2045.org) by following the “Virtual Community Workshop” link. The materials will remain available and comments may be submitted on the website through Feb. 10.