Back to PRESS PAGE       (source) NEW SAUGERTIES TIMES Editorial August 16, 2001 (p14)

MORATORIUM

    The town government should declare a moratorium on special-use permits for mining operations in Saugerties until its zoning audit is completed and recommendations are made on the zoning law. Though a moratorium would not affect the Shott Rock Inc. application for a quarry in Veteran, it would send a message that such incursions into residential areas are not natural to the trajectory of town growth today. In general, moratoriums are municipal tools used to help regulations catch up with reality. They constitute wake-up calls for a community, not final decisions. They create an awareness that something in the current scheme rings false and needs fixing. They are useful as short-term, limited-range, tactical instruments to give the community breathing room to stop and think. They do not say yes, or no, but rather: let's take a look.
    In the specific instance of Saugerties, a moratorium on special-use permits also would conform with the zoning audit process with which the town is currently engaged. The comprehensive plan committee has been trying over the last few months to examine the recommendations made in the zoning audit by the New York Planning Federation, with the goal of bringing the zoning law into conformity with the comprehensive plan. The zoning audit says that some of the recommendations in the comprehensive plan are not considered in the existing zoning law. The law should be changed to reflect the plan's recommendations.
    Several areas in these recommendations argue against any mining permits in residential zones. Any light industry in Saugerties, the plan and the zoning audit say, should be in industrial areas, not separated or stuck in the middle of residential zones. There is ample evidence to show that the Shott Rock application falls in an area that is residential - both really and by law. Eventually the planning board should do the right thing and rule against the proposal. But in the meantime the town should take a look and see if these kinds of permits are warranted at all.
    If the town government doesn't act, it is taking a chance that another one will come along, one more competently presented and more vigorously defended than the Shott Rock plan, one that might warrant a special-use permit even if the planners didn't want it to happen. There is a way to avoid that calamity now.
    Maybe the conclusion of the zoning audit process will show that special-use permits like this can be continued - but do we want to take that chance?

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