GLOSSARY

In order to facilitate understanding of the Town's Comprehensive Plan, including proposed implementation measures, key planning terms used throughout the Master Plan Committee's Report are defined in this section.

Adaptive Use

The process of converting older buildings to new uses or performing necessary modifications so they can continue in their traditional use. It can provide an opportunity by which historically significant buildings as well as other sound older buildings may be saved from demolition and still be economically viable.

Because adaptive use offers a wide range of benefits, it is becoming increasingly popular. Through this technique it is possible to save on land acquisition, demolition, construction and energy costs, and projects may be completed more quickly than new construction. In addition, adaptive use often provides a distinctive architectural and aesthetic environment either unobtainable in new construction or obtainable only at very high cost.

A wide range of adaptive use projects is possible, such as the conversion of agricultural, industrial or commercial space to residential use or the adaptation of large old homes for commercial uses, office or conference center purposes.

Affordable Housing Program

A local effort to promote the delivery of rental and/or ownership housing at more moderate prices as as to include a broader cross-section of the community (both existing residents and those who would be expected-to-reside in the community) within the category "income-eligible".

Agricultural District

1. A designated agricultural area eligible for real property tax relief. Agricultural districts are usually quite large, ranging from a portion of a town sufficient to include several farms to portions of several towns. To qualify for inclusion in a district, farmlands must generally meet criteria of minimum agricultural production and income.
   
   
2. A zoning classification in which agricultural uses as well as single-family residential development on large parcels are permitted.

Architectural Controls

Regulations, designed to be used in conjunction with zoning, that control the architectural design of buildings or structures. They are generally administered by architectural review boards and may be applicable to entire municipalities or to particular areas. Architectural controls are intended to produce buildings that are aesthetically acceptable to a community. They are used principally for new development in suburban areas and to preserved architecturally significant areas by ensuring that new or renovated structures are harmonious with the environment in which they are to be located. Some communities have adopted ordinances that prohibit "look-alike" design to encourage architectural conformity.

Architectural controls regulate such building elements as facades, rooflines, door and window locations, and massing of building components and may even allow reviewing agencies to make judgments regarding good or bad design. Although criticized by some, including many architectural design professionals, as preventing innovative design, such controls have tended in many cases to prevent development that is considered inappropriate to community character.

Capital Improvement Program (CIP)

A multiyear program of proposed capital expenditures used as a programming guide for public improvements, of which the first year of the program is the capital budget. CIPs generally project capital spending three to six years into the future buy rarely constitute a binding commitment for future spending; in contrast, the capital budget represents a formal commitment to expend funds. CIPs are developed or redeveloped annually, usually with input from the planning board working in conjunction with the budget officer.

Cluster Development

A development approach in which building lots may be reduced in size and buildings sited closer together, usually in groups or clusters, provided that the total development density does not exceed that which could be constructed on the site under conventional zoning and subdivision regulations. The additional land that remains undeveloped is then preserved as open space and recreational land. Cluster developments have become popular because, in addition to preserving more open space than if the building units were evenly spread across the property, they allow the preservation of fragile environmental areas such as wetlands and steep hillsides. As this land, which min many cases would not have been buildable anyway, can be preserved at no additional cost to the developer. It is possible to keep development costs lower. Other cost-saving factors are the shorter street and utility lines that are possible with clustering. Open space that is preserved through clustering is often maintained by a homeowners� association, or it may be dedicated as public land. Under New York enabling legislation, a planning board may be authorized to mandate the use of the cluster technique where important to the protection or significant environmental resources and to the achievement of the municipality's land use and development objectives.

Coastal Zone

Zone that includes the coastal waters and those land areas near the coastal waters that influence and affect each together. The Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972 defined the coastal zone as the coastal waters and adjacent shorelands "strongly influenced by each other an in proximity to the shorelines of the several coastal states, and includes islands, transitional and internal areas, salt marshes, wetlands and beaches." The landward portion of the coastal zone is further defined as extending "inland from the shorelines only to the extent necessary to control shorelands, the uses of which have a direct and significant impact on the coastal waters."

Each state is required to develop and apply a procedure for identifying the coastal zone boundaries of the state that takes into account the inland boundary necessary to control shorelands with direct impacts upon coastal waters; the extent of the territorial sea; and transitional areas; wetlands, intertidal areas and beaches. As a result of this required procedure, boundaries of the coastal zone vary from state to state.

The program for a municipality�s management of its coastal zone is known as a "local waterfront revitalization plan".

Comprehensive Plan

An official document that serves as a guide to the long-range physical development of a community. Typically, comprehensive plans are concerned with a time frame of at least five years and are primarily oriented to the various aspects of the physical development of an area.

A comprehensive plan performs a number of important community functions.

First, it is a written policy statement of community values that expresses the form and character the community hopes to achieve.

Second, it serves as a coordinative framework upon which all other administrative and regulatory documents relating to land development should be based. The zoning ordinance, subdivision regulations, official map, capital improvements program and budget, and community development activities should be in accord with the policies set forth in the plan.

Third, plans are increasingly attaining status as legal documents governing the content of land use controls, and a number of states now require local governments to adopt plans and to make all land use regulations consistent with the provisions of these plans.

Typically, a plan is comprehensive in that it covers the entire geographic area of the community and considers all of the components necessary to allow the community to function. A comprehensive plan, generally consisting of both text and graphic materials, usually includes a description of past trends, current conditions, community goals and objectives, recommendations for each substantive subject area the plan discuses and review of the assumptions on which the plan is based.

It also should generally contain recommendations for implementing the plan, coordinating its various elements, and coordinated the plan with the plan of neighboring communities and larger political jurisdictions of which the community is a part.