Kathy Hudson on the proposal to... eliminate the limit on maximum driveway length...
Re: Consideration of the proposal to amend the Town Zoning Law to eliminate the limit on maximum driveway length, which applies to both the Ridge Protection District and to the town as a whole
There are several very important reasons why the driveway length restriction in the Town’s Zoning law should not be modified or eliminated, and I strongly urge the Board not to amend the law to remove this important protection.
As a resident of Gardiner since 1993 and based on my having served on the Zoning Advisory Committee that was involved in helping to draft both laws and having served as a member of the Town Planning Board involved with applying the Ridge Protection Law to various proposals that came before our board, it has been my experience that the laws' restriction on maximum driveway length serves a number of significant purposes.
Public Safety:
First and perhaps foremost, it protects public safety, and the safety of our firefighters and other emergency responders. Fire department officials will be able to speak more specifically to this issue, and I certainly hope that they will on Tuesday night, but there are significant challenges and risks involved in getting to a fire or other emergency situation in a timely way where access to a residence is limited to a very long driveway. Delays in responding not only endanger the residence that is in need of help, but in the case of a fire, other residences in the area, and in the case of the Ridge District, potentially inaccessible wooded areas adjacent to the burning home. There are also risks for firefighters who have responded, if adequate water is not immediately available and there is not adequate hose length to reach water and/or additional firefighters or emergency personnel cannot reach the home because they cannot get around the initial responding equipment.
These are the very reasons, and others that I am certain Fire Department officials could expand on, that the maximum driveway length restriction was placed in the Town wide zoning law, just passed. These public safety concerns and concerns for the welfare of our volunteer emergency responders who have committed to putting their lives at risk for us are apply even more strongly in the Ridge Protection District than in the rest of town, given the increased problems with access in that area, given slope, terrain and other challenges specific to that district. In addition, that area has significantly more potential for a fire that could expand to other properties and that would be far more difficult to control given the conditions and the absence of any organized efforts to reduce the risk of forest fire on privately owned properties through techniques like controlled burns, etc. The fire that occurred in the Ridge District this fall indicates that this is a very real threat.
Protection of Environmental Quality of the Ridge District consistent with the Direction of Town’s Comprehensive Plan:
There are a number of reasons why the maximum driveway length restriction for the Ridge District, which mirrors that for the rest of the town, is particularly critical for the Ridge District. Initially, the maximum length was proposed to be 1200 feet, but realizing that lower length restriction would force a number of landowners to have to seek variances from the ZBA, the ZAC recommended that the restriction be raised to 2500 feet, which would permit the vast majority of landowners to be able to reach a buildable homesite on their lot. The environmental protection purpose of the restriction is to limit to the extent possible adverse environmental and visual impacts from excessive clearing, grading, cutting and installing of impervious surfaces in sensitive areas. These impacts would potentially not only affect the property on which the driveway was being built, but also properties, and roads, downslope of the driveway because of drainage and stormwater management issues. Excessively long driveways to lead to home construction at higher elevation on Ridge district properties would also defeat the visual protection goals of the Ridge District law. Finally, the absence of a maximum driveway length will allow the building of snaking driveways, with many "switchbacks," necessary to negotiate areas of steep slopes, again increasing dramatically the amount of land clearing and impervious surface necessary, and the inevitable environmental and visual damage that would go along with it.
Options for Landowners:
Both the Ridge protection and the Town-wide Zoning Laws provide landowners with the ability to seek a waiver of the restriction on maximum driveway length through an application to the Zoning Board of Appeals. It is very important that this process of an application for a variance remain in place, rather than remove the restriction. This allows the ZBA to evaluate, on a case by case basis, what environmental impacts may be associated with a particular proposal for a longer driveway on a particular piece of property, and to identify ways in which those impacts might be mitigated. If the driveway length restriction is eliminated, there would be no such evaluation and no such mitigation, to the detriment of both public safety and environmental protection.
In the one instance that I am aware of where an application for a variance for driveway length was made to the ZBA, that application was granted, so it is unclear what the removal of the driveway restriction would accomplish which is already available to homeowners under the existing law. And what would be lost by removing the restriction in terms of protection of public safety and the precious environmental resources of our Town would be significant, and irretrievable.
I strongly urge you as Town Board members to vote to retain the law as written with respect to maximum driveway length, both as to the Ridge District and Town wide, for the reasons I’ve discussed above, and to be true to the direction of our Town Comprehensive Plan and to the election pledges that at least some of you made to maintain the protections of the Ridge District law.
Thank you for considering my comments on this very important issue.
Kathy Hudson