New rules for Newfield town subdivisions

The Newfield Town Board voted to approve a Subdivision Review Law on Thursday, Oct. 8, that will regulate development and ensure new building projects are in the town’s best interests.

According to Town Supervisor Mike Allinger, the Newfield Planning Board first came up with the law in 2019, while working closely with the Town Board. The law was intended to protect the town from liabilities, allow town leadership to influence development plans and make sure that projects have adequate infrastructure to deal with stormwater, among other things.

On July 9, the Town Board presented the law for a public hearing, and it passed at the Aug. 13 meeting; the Oct. 8 meeting helped establish a fee scaling for filing a subdivision with the town.

According to the law, a subdivision is defined as “any parcel of land within the town of Newfield which is divided into five or more lots of any size for the purpose of sale, transfer or ownership, or development as residential or mixed residential/commercial lots.”

Those who intend to establish subdivisions on their property must apply in writing to Newfield’s Planning Board, provide appropriate documentation and pay a fee for the review process.

Newfield’s legal counsel Tom Smith said that fees for the review process were nonrefundable, even if the proposal was rejected, because they paid for work that the county did on the review.

He said that he personally preferred letting applicants know of a specific price in advance, but court cases made it clear that the fee had to be based on an accurate guess of how much the review process would cost.

“You can’t put a scary figure in there to discourage applications because that was what was happening in some municipalities. They put a large figure in there to discourage applications,” Smith said.

A full draft of the subdivision law is available on the town’s website, newfieldny.org.

The Board also discussed the project to install a new well, which, according to Allinger, was part of an infrastructure project that started after a 2014 report identified several issues for the town to address. This included replacing the well and pump #1 at Pine Circle, which required finding a new source of water.

Town Highway Superintendent Kevin Berggren reported that a drill had been set up at the site to drill a well 5 feet from the test well. He said the drilling would begin within five or six days of the meeting and that the test well would be sealed Monday, Oct. 12, but left in place in order to monitor the water above the aquifer.

Berggren said that a formal proposal to the Health Department would be necessary to put the well into service, and the Health Department would tell them about the requirements for the process. He said he was unsure whether the process would be finished by Friday, Oct. 16, but he hoped it would be.

“So you’re saying it’s going to be a nail-biter?” Allinger said to Berggren.

“Pretty much,” Berggren said in response. “It wouldn’t be any other way here.”

When contacted on Thursday, Oct. 15, Berggren said that the project had gone as anticipated. He said that the test well had been grouted and that the new test/production well was in place and was in the process of being developed.

Berggren expressed concern about the well being unable to achieve a 100% replacement rate. He said installing another leach field would not be an option because they would run out of space for a replacement if one of the others became unusable.

In other business, the Board voted to approve a waiver for the Covered Bridge Market to sell alcohol. The business had been sold to Rob Jordan last month, and Jordan applied for a liquor license while running the business.

Jordan sent the Board a letter saying that he intended to run the business the same way the Rod Heffron, the previous owner, had, save for changing the name to Covered Bridge Pizzeria.

Newfield Talks Social Distancing At School

At the Oct. 1 meeting of Newfield’s Board of Education, Eric Hartz, acting superintendent, spoke to the Board about the district’s efforts to help students learn safely during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hartz described some of the district’s policies, such as requiring masks in the school, taking temperatures at the front door and dividing middle- through high-schoolers into those attending on Mondays and Tuesdays and those attending on Thursdays and Fridays.

He said that he had heard about counties that had seen a rise in COVID-19 cases and about schools that had to close down for 10 to 14 days, and he hoped that Newfield’s schools could safely stay open.

“We’re just gonna knock on wood that the things we’re doing are working,” Hartz said.

Hartz discussed regulations for what happens if someone in a given household is sick. He said that if a sick student is tested for COVID-19 and the test result is negative, the student and their siblings can return once they are symptom-free. Students who test negative but do not feel well must stay home until they recover.

“I have this gut feeling that if we stay healthy, and things continue the way they are, … we can see a large number of students want to come back to the building,” Hartz said.

Hartz stressed the importance of wearing masks, especially if more students are allowed back to school. He said that the schools were looking into how to best position desks to ensure social distancing in class, but it would not always be easy to meet the standards.

“I truly don’t feel like in every room, we’re going to get the perfect 6 feet apart,” Hartz said. “I want to remind everyone; the rule is 6 feet apart, or you have your mask on.”

Hartz said that some Newfield extracurricular activities could continue in person while adhering to Health Department rules, others would have to be held virtually. And still, others had come up with “extremely creative” plans to adapt, albeit ones he did not want to “give away” at the meeting.

According to Hartz, the varsity club was trying to include as many students as possible in athletics, holding after-school games for students based on the days they were in class. Students attending class on Mondays and Tuesdays would play on Mondays and Tuesdays, students in school Thursdays and Fridays would also play on Thursdays and Fridays, and virtual students would play on Wednesdays.

He said that “athletics was moving forward,” with coaches doing off-season training, and he planned to appoint coaches at the Oct. 15 meeting.

“I’m excited about it because we’re starting to do some of the, I hate to say ‘normal’ because I don’t know what normal is anymore, but how about some of the things we used to be able to do, we’re starting to bring back into school,” Hartz said.