TOWN OF PLATTEKILL

updated Master Plan

cover to include graphic from Plattekill Elementary School photo project

final draft December, 2001

prepared by the Master Plan Committee

submitted to the Town Board, Town of Plattekill

comments to:

Dave Church, New York Planning Federation                   or         Brain McKay, Committee Chair

44 Central Ave., Albany, NY  12206                                               Town of Plattekill, Route 44/55, PO Box 45

800 366 6973,  518 427 8625 (fax)                                                Modena, NY,  12548

dchurch@hvc.rr.com                                                             845 883 7331 or 7332,  845 883 7207 (fax)

Comprehensive Plan  (also known as “master plan”)

A comprehensive plan consists of the materials, written and/or graphic including but not limited to maps, charts, studies, resolutions, reports, and other descriptive material that identify the goals, objectives, principles, guidelines, policies, standards, devices and instruments for the immediate and long-range protection, enhancement, growth and development of the municipality.

New York State Chapter 418 of the Laws of 1995 amending Town Law § 272-a.

Town of Plattekill Vision Statement

To provide for a future in which all of Plattekill’s citizens can experience a high and affordable standard in quality of life and development,

and to promote orderly growth and balanced use of land.

Acknowledgements …………………………………………………                  i

Executive Summary …………………………………………………                  ii       

Introduction ……………………………………………………………….. 5

The Importance of a Plan  ………………………………………    5

The Planning Process  ……………………………………………  6

Land Use History  ………………………………………………………… 8

Plattekill Today  …………………………………………………………… 12

          Trends   ……………………………………………………………...          12

 Policies ………………………………………………………………         15

          Assets and Challenges  ……………………………………………          20

          Public Opinion  ………………………………………………………         23

Recommended Actions  ………………………………………………… 26

Guide to Terms Used  …………………………………………………… 33    

Mapsa

            Figure 1, 2001 Land Use
            Figure 2, Town Assets

            Figure 3, Vacant, Developable Farm Land

Supplemental Reports  (available at Town Hall or on-line at www.town.plattekill.ny.us)

            1999 Southern Ulster Alliance Countryside Exchange

            2001 Town of Plattekill Survey, SUNY-New Paltz American Marketing Association

            2001 (June) Town of Plattekill Public Sewer and Water Service Feasibility Study      

Introduction

In 2000 the Town of Plattekill entered its third century as an incorporated municipality.   This updated Town Master Plan seeks to provide a vision and a series of recommended actions as Plattekill sets to establish how land should best be used, preserved and enhanced in the near future of this new century, and what program priorities should be set to support this vision.

The Importance of a Plan

Why update a plan?   First, all towns in New York State are obliged to have an up-to-date plan as the legal foundation for any zoning and land use regulations. More importantly, a thoughtful plan, based on public input and a positive perspective for the future, can help set the priorities for coordinated action by Town officials, staff and volunteers.   This plan also offers guidance to anyone interested in Plattekill   ---  including Town residents, property owners, businesses, organizations and prospective businesses or investors  ---  about our history, our current conditions, and what we prefer as a future. In summary, the leading reasons to update Plattekill’s plan are:

v     To help attract the desired future and to help avoid an undesirable future.

v     To establish a contemporary, positive community vision.

v     To identify actions to ensure economic stability and protect valuable natural, cultural and historic resources.

v     To provide guidance and direction to other agencies and interests.

v     To help avoid surprises by understanding the Town’s assets and liabilities.

v     To improve access to government and non-government assistance through clarity of vision.

v     To provide a legal and technical foundation for land use policies and tools.

The Planning Process

This plan builds on an original 1973 Town of Plattekill Master Plan, along with a 1993 update of that Plan.  Those plans recognized the need to maintain the important and historic role of agriculture in Plattekill, as well as the important but declining role of summer/weekend tourism.  A steady increase of residential construction and the need to maintain a high quality and mix of housing types were also leading themes, along with a desire to encourage concentrated development near Modena and other hamlets as “focal points of the Town.”

In 1998 a Master Plan Committee was appointed with an overall goal to provide leadership and advice towards updating the Town’s plans.  As noted in the Committee’s early direction from the Plattekill Town Board, the overall goal of an updated plan should be to preserve the past, plan for the present, and prepare for the Town’s future development in a manner that would require a high standard of quality for all development as well as promote orderly growth and balanced use of land.   Additionally, the plan should identity other goals to support the community, along with determining what problems need to be addressed and planned for.  What types of development would the Town like to see?  What are our needs as a community?

The Town Master Plan Committee has been meeting regularly for nearly two years.   In late 1999 the Committee agreed to contract assistance from two organizations.  First, the New York Planning Federation was retained to provide the committee with overall professional guidance, research and project coordination.   Second, the Collegiate Chapter of the American Marketing Association at SUNY-New Paltz was retained to survey resident attitudes about the provision of services and the overall quality of life found in the Town of Plattekill.   That work included facilitation of focus groups in each of the Town’s hamlets, as well as the completion and analysis of a randomly-selected survey of some 330 Town residents.

This Plan builds on the work of the Master Plan Committee and on the assistance of our professional partners.  Certain other documents and studies also were key references.  Most important were:

v     GML Referral Guide and Land Use Plan,  prepared by the Ulster County Planning Board.

v     Ulster County Agricultural and Farmland Protection Plan, sponsored by the Ulster County Agricultural and Farmland Protection Board (1997)

v     Southern Ulster Alliance Countyside Exchange Report, prepared by The Countryside Institute and Glynwood Center (1999)

v     Town of Plattekill Public Water and Sewer Service Feasibility Study, prepared by Dufresne-Henry Engineers at the request of the Town of Plattekill Town Board (2001)

Finally, the Town Board further asked that the following categories be considered in the preparation of this Plan.   They were:

ü      Economic development

ü      Residential development

ü      Recreation

ü      Agriculture

ü      Infrastructure (water, sewer)

ü      Transportation

ü      Commercial uses

ü      Government services

ü      Capital improvements

ü      Cultural/historical resources

ü      Sensitive environmental areas

ü      Utilities

ü      Zoning

LAND USE HISTORY

The history of Plattekill is predated by relatively vague accounts of Native American activity associated with the Delaware  or Leni-Lenape, more recently referred to as the Esopus Indians, who were known to be active along the Wallkill River Valley.  European settlement of the area began in the late 1600s and early 1700s through land patents from the English Governor of New York.   With an act of the New York State Legislature, Plattekill was divided from the Town of Marlborough to the east,  and became the ninth town in Ulster County on March 21, 1800.   At the time of its incorporation as a Town, an estimated 1600 people lived here and were focused on the area’s farming heritage.[1]    By 1860 Plattekill was described as having a soil of   “a fine quality of sandy and gravelly loam…. on which were several hamlets including) Plattekill near the s.line, contains a church and 25 dwellings; Clintondale in the n. part, on the line of Lloyd, a church and 20 dwellings; Flint (New Hurley) in the s.w. corner, on the line of Shawangunk, a church and 15 dwellings, and Modena near the n.w. corner, 16 dwellings.”[2]

Subsequent growth in Plattekill was spurred by its railroad era, beginning in 1887 with the incorporation and opening of the Hudson Connecting Railroad.  That line served to link the new Hudson River railroad bridge at Poughkeepsie with the main rail line through Orange County south at Campbell Hall.  With depots in Modena and outside Clintondale, these two hamlets experienced noticeable development in the early twentieth century.   Since the 1950s, Plattekill has seen spurts of residential and agricultural development throughout the Town, linked to the region’s economy and improved accessibility to the larger Hudson Valley and New York metropolitan regions via the nearby New York State Thruway and Interstate 84.

Named after the Platte Kill stream in the southwestern portion of the Town, Plattekill has an agricultural heritage worth noting.   By the mid-1800s, the Town had become the center of a larger region’s prominent fruit growing.   Initially dominated by grape growing  -  including such varieties as Isabella and Catawba and later Concord, Niagara and Delaware – grapes along with raspberries and currants, were particularly important into the 1900s.   In The Village of Clintondale from its beginning …[3]  the decline of grape growing is related to the loss of readily available fertilizing horse manure from New York City in the mid-twentieth century, as the car overtook horse and wagon as the primary means of transportation.

With improved railroad access to markets, dairying also grew as an occupation, with creameries near many of the region’s rail stations, including Elting’s Corner.   However, it has been apple growing that has dominated the past century, with orchards steadily growing in size to compete.  Indeed, much of the Town’s twentieth century history is punctuated by dramatic weather changes such as early freezes, hail storms, or hurricanes affecting fruit crops, a key to the local economy.

Cold storage of fruit started later in the nineteenth century and became a critical element of fruit production and marketing which survives today.   Originally reliant on local ice harvesting, larger refrigerated buildings were soon built.    Farms learned the value of shared storage.  Early cooperative efforts, such the Clintondale Fruit Growers Co-op, Inc., broadened from storage and helped  local growers to better compete in buying, storage and marketing into the 1940s.   Today, Plattekill’s landscape and economy is still dominated by orchards, irrigation ponds and storage buildings of the fruit business.

The following contrasting photographs show how many aspects of this historic landscape survive today.

PLATTEKILL TODAY

Trends

Today Plattekill is influenced by several trends as part of a larger environmental region and economic marketplace known as the Mid-Hudson Valley.   These include:

o       Strong residential growth as people continue to seek the relative affordability and high quality of location found here.  In the past decade, the Town’s population grew at a rate of more than 11%, slightly slower than its fast growing, immediate western neighbors of Gardiner and Shawangunk, yet right in pace with the larger Orange/southern Ulster county region as part of the fastest growing area in upstate New York.  The Town is increasingly becoming a bedroom community. (see table 1) 

o       Continued importance of agriculture, particularly the many orchards long unique to Plattekill and southeastern Ulster County.  Agriculture remains a key aspect of the economy and a prominent element of the Town’s landscape and character.  Yet fruit growing has become an increasingly challenged business.

o       Growing conflicts between neighborhood land uses, aggravated by the site difficulties of new and historic residences near active agricultural uses or expanding, the private outdoor recreation businesses in proximity to residences, and overall increased density of development in some neighborhoods.

o       Continued growth of tourism, now less reliant on earlier resort and villa locations, and more diverse and linked to specialized outdoor recreation,  sightseeing and other short term visits and activities focused on the region’s wealth of agriculture, historic preservation, and rural scenery all within a one or two hour trip from anywhere in one of the world’s great metropolitan areas.

o       Sustained and growing Hispanic community, long an important influence on the Town.  Sixteen percent of the 9892 residents found in the 2000 census report shows that Plattekill has one of the largest and fastest growing Hispanic populations of any town in its region.

o       A quiet commuting community, as Plattekill’s resident population grows without complementary growth in local employment opportunity.   Like much of southern Ulster County and nearby northwestern Orange County, new residents are coming to enjoy an attractive quality of life in many cases anchored to jobs outside of the Town, notably in nearby southwestern Dutchess County or in Newburgh or New Paltz, or further south towards the New York metropolitan region.

A critical trend for the Town of Plattekill relates to the Town property tax base.   As shown in Table 1, the property tax base has grown increasingly reliant and residential development.  This gain has been at the expense of a diversified tax base, with notable loses in agricultural and vacant land values reflecting both the reduction in active farmland the the conversion of lands to other uses.

Table 1

Town of Plattekill  -  Property Tax Values by Land Use Type

All values in thousands of dollars and in percent (%) of total Town values.