A custom of convening Town of Gardiner municipal officials that became an annual thing during Marybeth Majestic’s second term as supervisor, but was then dropped during the COVID pandemic, will soon be revived. But the timing will be different next time: postponed until spring, instead of happening in December, when many are frantic with holiday preparations.
Records of joint meetings of the Town Board, Planning Board and Zoning Board of Appeals go back at least to the Joe Katz administration. Carl Zatz convened one in 2012 where the issue of contradictions within the zoning code, and the headaches they were creating for Town planners, topped the officials’ list of persistent concerns.
Other priorities arose over time, however, and communication among the various boards and committees continued to be spotty. Although local laws were periodically passed adding new provisions to the Zoning Code, not much was done to address the areas where the code was vague, inconsistent or out of sync with Gardiner’s Comprehensive Plan. By 2017, the Planning and Zoning Boards were clamoring for both more clarity in the laws and more consistent communication procedures, and Majestic decided to bring the three Boards together at the end of the year.
That gathering went well enough that another one was held a year later, and in 2019 the multi-board meeting was expanded to include several committees. “Early on, they were very beneficial. People weren’t familiar with each other,” Majestic said in retrospect, characterizing these meetings as mainly “networking” events. “But then COVID happened.” There were no joint meetings in 2020 or 2021.
There won’t be one in 2022, either, but only because the current consensus of the Town Board is that, in deputy supervisor Laura Walls’ words, “December is too much.” A plan took shape at the November 10 Town Board meeting to schedule a multi-board meeting in March: early enough in the year for the various boards and committees to share their respective needs, goals and challenges for 2023, but allowing them a few months for their members to prepare their presentations. This time, the emphasis will be less on getting to know each other and more on committing to an action plan.
Much has changed on the planning and zoning front in Gardiner during the two-year hiatus. The once-dormant Open Space Commission is active again; detailed natural resource inventories were completed; and last year, an updated version of the Town’s Comprehensive Plan was adopted, paving the way toward repairing the weak spots in the Zoning Code at last. The new Comp Plan comes with a set of specific recommendations, most of which have yet to be implemented.
“We have to get started on the Comprehensive Plan. I suggest that we begin by identifying six to eight priorities,” suggested councilman Warren Wiegand. “We could ask each committee for two or three priorities, and then boil those down to the six or eight most important…Affordable housing comes to mind.”
“We could ask them to identify the components of the Comp Plan that those committees plan to tackle,” said councilman Franco Carucci. “Give everyone homework.”
Councilwoman Carol Richman stressed the importance of identifying specific changes in local laws that might be needed to update the Code and bring it into clearer alignment with the goals of the Comp Plan. Past multi-board meetings in Gardiner have usually included Town attorneys as participants; and if this next one happens in March as envisioned, they’re sure to be taking notes. Meanwhile, Gardiner residents now have a three-month window in which to reach out to their local boards and committees to make their top priorities known.
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