Some of life’s most important lessons are learned the hard way: by facing unforeseen challenges, and then having to live with the negative consequences due to lack of preparation. In the case of municipalities – especially sleepy small towns in rural areas like Ulster County – it’s often the arrival of a large developer with deep pockets that lights a fire under local leaders. The first time it happens, the community is typically not armed for battle with strong, clearly articulated zoning laws and planning goals, and some gigantic project gets steamrolled through. If residents aren’t happy with the result, that’s when change starts to happen. Once burned, twice shy. People realize that if they want to have some say over how their town grows, advance planning is essential.
Here in the mid-Hudson, one town after another has undergone this experience in recent decades. Municipal leaders have invested considerable energy into creating zoning codes, drafting Comprehensive Plans that set out the town’s agreed-upon goals and then tweaking them periodically to keep up with changing times. More and more often, professional planning consultants are brought in to educate leaders about what tools are available to them and how other towns have found success.
The goal of such planning is almost never to quash development altogether, but rather to ensure that the shape it takes is resident-driven rather than developer-driven – that it represents investment in the community’s future and not merely exploitation of its resources. Instead of a mega-mall with acres of asphalt on the edge of town, where family farms help to preserve beautiful views, for example, perhaps the wannabe developer can be incentivized to build a smaller, walkable shopping village with parklike landscaping in another part of town that has already been zoned for mixed-use development and is on a local bus route. The point is that the locals get to decide what they want.
The Town of Rosendale has seen its share of community battles over development proposals, and responded by modernizing its zoning laws. But the most recent iteration of its Comprehensive Plan was adopted in 2005, and the nature of development pressures has changed in many ways in the years since. The influx of refugees from New York City in 2020, when refrigerated trucks were parked on the streets because the morgues were overflowing with COVID victims, put unprecedented pressure on housing prices in Hudson Valley towns. Short-term rentals became so lucrative that wealthy entities from outside the region began buying up houses and apartments and turning them into Airbnbs.
Many Ulsterites found their jobs vanish or their incomes shrink due to the economic effects of the pandemic and other trends. Businesses that used to thrive suddenly found themselves no longer viable. Meanwhile, most of the energies of Town of Rosendale leaders were still focused on repairing and replacing infrastructure that had been badly damaged by Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee in 2011.
Two members of Rosendale’s Economic Development Committee, Andrew Willner and Maria Reidelbach, saw a need to respond to the distress that many town residents were experiencing in the wake of the pandemic. They wanted to find an approach that was long-term and proactive rather than reactive. Ruthie Boumbourne, project coordinator for Rosendale Heart & Soul, takes up the tale: “They were concerned about the changes that COVID made on Rosendale. The Comprehensive Plan hadn’t been updated in a long time. They were looking for solutions to potential problems, and they came across Community Heart & Soul and thought it was a good fit.”
Based in Shelburne, Vermont and founded by Lyman Orton, proprietor of the Vermont Country Store, Community Heart & Soul (CHS) is a not-for-profit organization that works on a nationwide basis to promote what it calls a “resident-driven process that engages the entire population of a town in identifying what they love most about their community, what future they want for it and how to achieve it.” It has created a template for channeling residents’ priorities into the municipal planning process – sort of a rural/small-town version of what’s called New Urbanism in larger cities. The CHS motto is “Involve everyone, focus on what matters most and play the long game.” The model has been adopted by more than 120 towns in 25 states; Rosendale is the first to get on board in New York.
CHS gives participating municipalities $10,000 planning grants to carry out its four-stage process over a period of two years. It was in the spring of 2022 that the Rosendale group was formed; it then qualified for a grant by securing a supporting resolution from the Town Board and attaining not-for-profit status. Phase I, Imagine, in which teams of volunteers are formed, is already complete (although new volunteers are always welcomed). “We’re now in Phase 2, trying to collect as many interviews as possible from as diverse a range of residents as possible,” says Boumbourne.
In Phase 2, Connect, “Stories are gathered from residents, leading to the development of Heart & Soul Statements that identify what matters most and reflect what they love about their towns.” Later, in Phase 3, Plan, residents will “develop action plans to guide future town planning based on their Heart & Soul Statements.”
The process winds up with Phase 4, Act, whose goal is that “Heart & Soul Statements are officially adopted by town and city councils, incorporated into comprehensive and other plans and are used to guide future policies and decisions.” The adoption piece will proceed (or not) at the discretion of Rosendale’s Town Board, of course; but Boumbourne notes, the program is “genuinely apolitical. Knowing the truth about the community you live in can only be a benefit.”
The trick, of course, is to make your outreach as broad and deep as possible, so that all points of view in the community are fairly represented and the coordinators are given plenty of ideas to choose from. That’s what’s happening now, during the Connect phase. US Census figures are used as a baseline for outreach. Adopting the CHS strategy of “bringing the table to the residents instead of bringing residents to the table,” trained volunteers attend all sorts of community events to spread the word and invite locals to be interviewed.
Interviews can be recorded in audio or video format or via Zoom. Anyone who “lives, works or plays in Rosendale” can also fill out a survey postcard that asks what they love about the community, their hopes for it and what changes they’d like to see. It’s available on the Rosendale Heart & Soul website, in a variety of Rosendale businesses and the library and is handed out at events. Boumbourne reports that Reidelbach has found the town’s only supermarket a particularly fruitful venue: “Maria just shows up at My Town Market, because everybody goes there.”
Organizers are also meeting with a variety of community groups, with a special effort underway to reach senior citizens who might not be reachable via high-tech communications modes. “Part of the plan is to find the ‘connectors’ and get them interested,” Boumbourne says. “It’s important to talk to as many people as we can… Different groups can be insular.” Once a resident has been interviewed, they’re invited to interview additional friends, family members and associates and send the results to Rosendale Heart & Soul, in hopes of creating a ripple effect.
The group’s goal is to complete the interviewing phase by the end of this summer. After that, the data collected will be analyzed, with an eye toward identifying common themes and strategies to address unmet needs. While some of the feedback so far has been as specific as wishing for a taco bar downtown, broader themes are already beginning to emerge, says Boumbourne, including the scarcity of housing and other concerns about the local economy.
Figuring out what the town might do to implement residents’ priorities will be part of Phase 3, but Rosendale Heart & Soul isn’t waiting to try to make things better in the short term. It’s already helping people connect with existing community groups and even creating some gatherings on its own. “A lot of people are saying they want more family-friendly community events, so we’ve been organizing some children’s events, where families can hang out, play games and have snacks,” Boumbourne notes. “The next one will be on June 29 at the Snyder Estate.”
If all goes well, Rosendalians across the board can expect to reap long-term social and economic benefits from the group’s efforts. CHS claims ambitious results from its tested formula: “Pride and confidence grow in the town. Civility and respect increase. Residents feel more connected to one another. Volunteerism increases. New young leaders emerge. More residents run for local office. Economic conditions improve. Investment in the town increases. New local businesses open. Town officials gain a deeper understanding of what matters to residents. Towns are better prepared to respond to emergency situations.”
For now, the emphasis is on maximal participation. Anyone interested in being interviewed, being trained to conduct an interview, volunteering in any capacity, becoming a donor or sponsor or inviting Rosendale Heart & Soul to visit an event or business can contact the group atchttp://www.rosendaleheartsoul.orgwww.rosendaleheartsoul.org. For more on Community Heart & Soul’s national program, visit www.communityheartandsoul.org.
Join the family! 
