Red Hook Land use, Conservation
and Development Working Group Recommendations

B. IDENTIFY AND PLAN DEVELOPMENT DISTRICTS

Recommendation #1

Implement the recommendations of the Town's adopted Comprehensive Plan to identify development districts, and then adopt consistent regulations that encourage and promote well-designed, mixed-use, tax positive development in these districts.

Suggested actions:

1. Create an intermunicipal agreement with the Villages of Red Hook and Tivoli to permit a consolidated Planning Board to identify and plan development districts in and adjacent to the Villages and the Hamlet of Upper Red Hook, using the following criteria and methodology:(See note 3 below.)

a. Involve the community and key stakeholders, including potentially affected landowners, in identifying development districts, and hold design workshops to plan these districts as traditional neighborhoods, with historic densisies and patterns, connected traffic-calming streets, minimized setbacks and lot frontages, and human scale architecture oriented towards pedestrians.
b. Prioritize conservation categories, and use the updated EP-O maps to identify potential areas for development.
c. Maintain a well-defined edge or "gateway" between developed and open land.
d. Include a diversity of housing types and sizes to meet the needs of diverse income groups, permit people in all stages of life to remain in the neighborhood, and reduce impacts on the school district. Permit granny flats,(see note 4 below) garage apartments, smaller single-family and accessory dwellings, and multi-family units in the same neighborhood.
e. Ensure that development districts are large enough to provide for an adequate amount of housing to accomodate porential growth.
f. Create walkable neighborhoodsds: encourage residences within 1/4 mile of shopping districts, and provide pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure. Identify areas for new mixed-use hamlets if the 1/4 miles distance is exceeded
g. Investigate connecting water systems to improve efficiency and to encourage business growth.

2. Produce maps and other graphics that show boundaries of development districts.

3.Adopt a Traditional Neighborhood Overlay (TNO) District to permit the planned mixed-use neighborhoods in the development districts, define these as permitted uses, and adopt a Generic Environmental Impact Statement (GEIS) to expedite the review process and encourage development to occur as planned.

Differences between a TNO and Conventional Development
Map not shown here

4. Adopt a Pattern Book for Community Design, with patterns for traditional neighborhood development in the development districts. The cost of this product should be reasonable, and resources from the County Planning Department should be utilized.

5. Create zoning incentives for developers who follow the guidelines in the Pattern Book and the TNO regulations and provide community benefits.

6. Amend the Zoning to permit voluntary Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) and identify the development districts as "receiving zones"

7. Define conventional lot-by-lot development in the development district as a special permitted use, and include it in a locally defined Type 1 threshold under SEQR (see note 6)

NOTES
3. On June 25,2004, the Working Group and members of the Working Group Steering Committee met with officials from the three municipalities to explore this idea. The three municipalities expressed interest in the concept of an intermunicipal Planning Board if certain issues were addressed. These issues are identified in the "Notes from the Meeting with Municipal Officials" in the Appendix to this report.

4. An apartment within a single-family dwelling
5. The purpose of Traditional Neighborhood Overlay District would be to maintain the original scale, density and character of the areas surrounding the Town's villages and hamlets. The TNO District would encourage development of fully integrated, mixed-use pedestrian oriented neighborhoods designed to minimize traffic congestion, suburban sprawl, infrastructure costs, and environmental degradation. Use of the overlay district in areas designed for more compact development would also allow for the creation of receiving zones for development rights transferred from agriculture and other open space lands in the Town.
6. This would not prohibit conventional development. Ratyher, identifying conventional development as a Type 1 action under SEQR would require the submission of a Full Environmental assessment Form ( EAF), rather than the short form, which would provide the Planning Board and involved agencies with additional information about the property, the proposed development, and it's potential impacts.

Recomendations from the Town's Comprehensive Plan:

Locate new development within and adjacent to the Villages of Tivoli and Red Hook and the Hamlet of Upper Red Hook, while discouraging a land use pattern that disperses development uniformly throughout the Town

Higher-density develoopment should be concentrated in areas that can be most efficiently served by existing and prospective municipal or municipally-approved central water and sewer, highways and other services.

Maintain the Village of Red Hook as the primary commercial center. Locate community facilities near or within established Village and hamlet centers

Locate personal and business services near the Hamlet of Upper Red Hook and the vicinity of the Village of Red Hook

Town/Village cooperation in land use planning is vital

Recommendations from the Town's Open Space Plan:

Incorporate a "town and country" approach-small hamlets and villages surrounded by open space, with a distinct edge between developed areas and surrounding countryside.

Concentrate well-designed, higher density development in existing or new centers.

Recommendations from Greenway Guides:

Focus development in and around traditional centers rather than encouraging most new construction on outlying greenfields or farmland.

Plan for pedestrians as a top priorty in villages and town centers, creating a safe and attractive network of sidewalks within a 5 to 10 minute walk of the center.

VR. 9 SIDEWALKS

An essental componant of village streets is the sidewalk, serving residents in every age group who take eveniong strolls, push baby carts, ride their scooters and pull their wagons. Sidewalks should be on both sides of every street and located behind tree_lawns where shade trees are planted in continuous rows.