Orangetown Board To Hold Hearing On South Nyack Zoning

SOUTH NYACK, NY — The Orangetown Town Board will continue hearing from the public Tuesday on amendments to its town code covering zoning in the new hamlet of South Nyack.

"The original hearing was postponed to address many of the concerns that were raised," Town Supervisor Teresa M. Kenny told Patch. "I am pleased that the Town Board took the additional time to consider the comments and make some changes to the proposed law. We will see what additional comments or concerns are raised Tuesday night and will decide from there whether we continue the hearing or approve of the local law."

South Nyack was officially dissolved as a village and incorporated into the town on March 31. The new hamlet joined 10 other unincorporated communities in Orangetown, including Blauvelt, Upper Grandview and Pearl River. The three incorporated villages in the town are also neighbors on the Hudson River: Nyack, Grand View-on-Hudson and Piermont.

The movement to dissolve the village started after Nyack College sold its campus to a Ramapo-based yeshiva.

The Orangetown town board members are considering a number of special concerns including development of hillsides, and the original public hearing was postponed. According to the resolution under discussion at Tuesday's meeting:

The future development of the hillside areas in the Hamlet of South Nyack is a problem of increasing urgency. The hillsides bypassed until now as too costly on which to build are virtually the last substantial areas for residential development in the Hamlet of South Nyack, and proposals for their use are beginning and can be expected to increase in the future. In the past, a large amount of cutting and filling was frequently done to get the maximum number of lots from a hilly piece of land. In the Hamlet of South Nyack, where steep hills are also characterized by droughty and shallow to bedrock soils, filling operations often entail the destruction of a great deal of the natural vegetation, disrupt the natural drainage pattern and cause excessive amounts of erosion.

The proposed zoning law gives the town Planning Board a specific formula to use to determine minimum lot requirements.

Also, the resolution proposes "critical environmental area" designations for Upper Grandview and Environs, the South Nyack Mountainous Area and the Hudson River area.

The former protects trees wider than 8 inches in diameter and the existing contours of the land.

The latter is basically a polygon bounded by the entire easterly shoreline along the river. The town wants to protect and preserve important aesthetic and scenic qualities including historic architecture. Also, the resolution says,

The Hudson River's ecological, geological, and hydrological sensitivity may be adversely affected by any change, development, or disturbance and must be scrutinized carefully and thoroughly so as to protect and preserve not only environmental integrity of the riverfront area, but the appearance of the shoreline from the River itself.

These are the proposed new South Nyack Zoning Districts:

The board will also establish hamlet-specific definitions and Hamlet of South Nyack Supplemental Regulations, with many criteria replicated from the former village's zoning law.