Town of Glenville, NY - Open Space Plan Executive Summary

What follows is an executive summary of the Town of Glenville Draft Open Space Plan. The executive summary consists of key passages from the actual Open Space Plan. The Plan itself is a 71-page document, complete with maps, photos and graphics, as well as appendices. The full Plan can be viewed at the office of the Town of Glenville Planning Department, or on the Town’s website at www.townofglenville.org

The Town of Glenville encompasses 50 square miles, or over 31,000 acres. The Town of Glenville Comprehensive Plan, adopted in 1990, notes that Glenville is really a story of four interconnecting communities; a “Suburban Residential Town,” “Rural Town of Hills and Hamlets,” “River Town,” and “Commercial and Industrial Town.” These are the hallmarks that define the character and heart of Glenville, a very livable community of diverse appeal and opportunity.

Glenville’s Rural “Town” of Hills and Hamlets character, generally represented west of Sacandaga Road, is found in its expansive open fields, meadows, woodlands and hedgerows, a landscape held in high esteem by residents of Glenville. Yet the countryside is in jeopardy of being lost as low density sprawl erases the beauty of Glenville’s pastoral settings. Open space gets consumed by numerous, large residential lots, with the result being a hodge-podge appearance that is dictated by the size, location, orientation, and style of home and the individual treatment of the landscape. Over time, if unchecked, the landscape will look no different than any other place in American suburbia, which is to say, nowhere in particular.

Our Suburban Residential “Town,” generally east of Sacandaga Road, became suburbanized between 1950 and 1970 when the number of housing units more than doubled. Yet today important vestiges of open space remain as cultivated fields, working orchards, woodlots and wetlands. These pockets of working lands and natural areas aesthetically punctuate an otherwise suburban landscape. Protecting these open lands is important to the community’s scenic attributes and quality of life. This is proving difficult, however, as in-fill suburban growth nibbles away at these remaining open spaces.

The River “Town” aspect of Glenville includes 14 miles of frontage along the Mohawk River, contributing significantly to the beauty and diversity of Glenville’s open spaces. The Mohawk River includes not only its islands and the riverbanks, but its expansive floodplains and multiple tributaries. The River defines Glenville’s lowest elevation of approximately 200 feet, while the Town’s highest elevations reach over 1,000 feet, a topography that has created an abundance of pristine streams. These streams have cut through the countryside to the Mohawk, shaping ravines and waterfalls. Collectively, Glenville’s watercourses are irreplaceable attributes that warrant greater consideration as integral to the Town’s distinctiveness.

Our Commercial and Industrial “Town” is the economic engine of the larger community. The Route 50 and Freemans Bridge Road corridors comprise much of our commercial town, while the industrial park complex off of Route 5 serves as our industrial town. Too often, though, open space considerations are lost to the narrow focusing on footprints and parking lots. If economic development efforts were broadened to include not only commercial and industrial land uses, but their impact on open space values, opportunities could be created for neighboring land areas to significantly enhance civic space. The area encompassing big box stores, for example, could be improved with the aesthetic use of open space if this kind of land use objective was considered during the blueprint phase. Vest-pocket parks or linear walkways along adjacent streams would greatly contribute to the physical setting without significant costs to the developer.

Since 1960, Glenville’s population has hovered between 28,000 and 29,000. Yet, in the past few years Glenville’s population has begun to increase, mirroring the robust housing market that until very recently has characterized much of the country over the last eight or nine years.

With its good schools and accessibility, Glenville will likely remain reasonably attractive for growth. Water lines are extending beyond the suburban fringe to support this development, and commercial space is expanding somewhat to meet the demands of the increasing population. As time goes by, though, development demands will continue to gobble up farms, fields and woods. Recognizing this, Glenville needs a comprehensive and coordinated action plan to protect significant open spaces that will help serve to keep the distinctive and interconnecting communities intact and to keep sprawl and the higher taxes that come with infrastructure expansion in check.

Were western Glenville built out to its allowed density of 3 acres, school and property taxes would increase significantly to cover the expenses of new services and education. In contrast, farmlands, forests, and wetlands require little in maintenance costs and no costly infrastructure.

Various studies that examine the cost of development and the property tax implications of growth have been conducted on municipalities in New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Jersey. These studies and others have consistently shown that single-family residential development is a tax drain. This is particularly true of low to moderate density residential development that one most associates with suburban communities. In short, it costs more to service residential growth than can be derived in property tax revenue.

For example, of the dozens of municipalities studied, the revenue-to-expenditure ratio in dollars for residential development ranged from a low of 1: 1.02 to a high of 1: 1.88. The average of all communities examined was 1: 1.15. In other words, on average, for every dollar derived in property tax revenue from residential growth, $1.15 is spent servicing the residential development.

Conversely, industrial/manufacturing growth and various types of commercial development have a positive financial impact on the community. The revenue-to-expenditure ratio in dollars for industrial and commercial growth ranged from 1: 0.12 to 1: 0.83. The average was 1: 0.29, meaning for every dollar derived in property tax revenue from industrial and commercial growth, $0.29 was spend servicing this growth. This is a tax positive ratio of nearly 4 to 1.

Open space also exhibits a positive revenue/expenditure ratio. The revenue-to-expenditure rate for farm/forest/open land ranged from 1: 0.16 to 1: 0.86, with an average of 1: 0.37. Admittedly open space does not generate a great deal of tax revenue, but the preservation of open space doesn’t place a financial burden on communities either, unlike single-family residential development.

Optimally, Glenville needs to strive to develop a positive tax base through a good mix and balance of land uses. Working to protect significant open spaces can greatly foster and promote positive environments for residential, commercial and industrial development. It has been said that quality development follows quality development. Glenville has the opportunity to represent this maxim.

The Open Space Questionnaire results indicate strong support for open space preservation, but both the survey results and comments raised at the three public information meetings reveal that there is reluctance to preserve open space through the levy of property taxes for bonding, or through eminent domain. The challenge, then, is to craft an open space preservation program that is both effective and fiscally frugal.

Protection of our aquifer was cited by an overwhelming majority of residents as the most important open space goal. Other features that were deemed highly worthy of preservation include stream corridors, wildlife and ecological resources, forests/woodlands, wetlands, and historical resources, to name a few.

Further, to achieve open space preservation, the public strongly supports the use of voluntary land donations and easements, tax incentives and land use regulations. There is also support for partnerships between landowners and the Town and/or land trusts. Support is also evident for open space acquisition, provided there is a clear policy for acquisition and property taxes are not increased to fund acquisition.

The Open Space Plan identifies existing publicly-owned open spaces in addition to offering several maps that identify various environmental, natural, scenic, cultural and historic features in Glenville. From these maps and supporting data, the end result is the “Open Space Areas Map,” arguably the most important graphic in the Open Space Plan.

The Open Space Areas Map is a very valuable tool in that it identifies regions of Glenville where open space preservation should be a priority due to environmental sensitivity, the clustering of natural resources and amenities and/or the presence of already existing parks, preserves and cultural or historic features, etc. The 10 open space areas that have been identified include:

The above areas are “ripe” for open space preservation. The Glenville Environmental Conservation Commission (GECC) and Planning & Zoning Commission (PZC) should consult the Open Space Areas Map whenever a site plan or subdivision application comes before them to determine if the property being targeted for development is located within these open space areas. If the property is located in one of these areas, the GECC and PZC need to consider the potential open space impacts of the proposed development to a higher degree than would normally be considered. If warranted, the GECC and PZC should then mandate that the applicant incorporate open space preservation into the development plan and/or require the applicant to pursue a layout and design that best protects open space features both on and near the project site.

Without a commitment to establishing a large funding source for the acquisition of conservation easements, development rights and open space properties, the Town must approach the topic of open space preservation through a multitude of strategies. The Open Space Plan calls for a comprehensive approach to open space preservation by citing 12 different actions to foster conservation. The list of actions below represent a mix of primarily regulatory and passive approaches, that if pursued earnestly, can result in meaningful open space preservation.

It should be noted that the actions outlined above, as well as the goals and objectives identified in the Open Space Plan, are not necessarily in conflict with the Town Board’s desire to attract new commercial and industrial development to the Town. New commercial and industrial development is going to occur in and around existing built-up areas such as Route 50, Freemans Bridge Road and Route 5, where open space preservation is not of particularly high importance.

It is actually residential sprawl that poses the greatest threat to the Town’s open spaces. Consequently, most of the recommended actions of the Plan are tailored to the residential development sector in an attempt to confine new housing development to areas where appropriate infrastructure is already in place, and to ensure that residential development in rural areas is more compact and complementary of existing natural features.

Open space and “quality of life” are intrinsically linked terms. When open space is lost to development, it is typically lost forever, and our collective quality of life suffers as a result. The Open Space Plan gives the Town of Glenville a variety of recommendations and tools to ensure that valuable open spaces are preserved for future generations. The time to act is now, however, while the natural, environmental, cultural and historic features that make Glenville unique still exist.