KNOX — A town that wants to guard its rural character seems to be of two minds about whether to create additional business districts within its borders.

It can definitely be said the town has been taking its time making up its mind on the issue.

Although some progress — retrogression, in the opinion of some — was made at the last monthly planning board meeting on Jan. 12.  The board wrapped up  old business concerning the long-discussed proposal to create a  business district at the junction of routes 156 and 157, voting  6 to 1, with Tom Wolfe the lone dissenter, to formally recommend to the town board that no such district be created “at this time.”

Wolfe and others in the town in the “pro-business” faction have pointed out, “We’re not talking about Wal-Mart coming in.”

In fact, the only new businesses on the Knox horizon are those that may eventually occupy the building in the hamlet that once housed a general store and that has been rebuilt from the inside out by a contractor employed by Supervisor Vasilios Lefkaditis as a personal investment.

The hamlet is the only area in the town zoned for business.

The notion of designating other areas in the town as business-suitable zones has been kicked around at least since the adoption of the town’s 1995 comprehensive plan. That earlier plan has been under review for several years now but  an updating is nearing completion.

In the interest of “economic...vitality,” the 21-year-old plan suggested five possible locations for business zoning, including the hamlet, the 156/157 junction, and along Route 146, all areas  that had, at the time, some established businesses, like the Township Tavern on Route 146 and the Highland Farms Restaurant on Route 156, which has since closed.

The hamlet business district was created in 2014, but a proposal at the same time for a second business district on Route 146, in part to accommodate a towing business  that was being run illegally there, not only failed but led to a fine being paid by the towing business, which later relocated outside the town. The outcome reinforced an impression among some unhappy residents that the town is hostile toward business and development.

At its November meeting, the planning board passed a resolution that cited “safety, infrastructure, geology and lack of demand” as reasons for recommending to the town board that “we do not establish an additional business district at this time”  at routes 156  and 157, and instead “focus our efforts and continue to work with the town board and comprehensive planning process to explore potential business districts in the town.”  The resolution also noted concerns expressed by the town board and the Knox Conservation Advisory Council.  Once again, only Wolfe voted against this resolution.

The  resolution got further detailing at the January meeting in  the form of “recommendations”  drafted by Travis O’Donnell and others on the board. O’Donnell is the board’s newest member. The addendum mentions two other  factors that influenced the board’s decision:  “input from a  rural planning consultant who is working with the town to update the comprehensive plan” and “the need for greater public feedback through public information meetings.”

The “need for greater public feedback”  is something Wolfe has consistently  argued for, but he maintains that it ought to  have occurred before the board decided on its recommendation to the town board, not after. He contends that such public input before a planning board decision is, in fact, required by the town’s current comprehensive plan.

This  was also  the position of Ray Hand — one of the few residents in the gallery. Another was Ken Saddlemire. Saddlemire was Lefkaditis’  choice both for a town board seat in the November election and for a planning board seat at the reorganizational meeting.  Saddlemire mounted a write-in campaign that came just short of winning the town board seat that was won by Dan Hanley; and  the town board voted, 4 to 1, against naming him to the planning board.

Hand’s opinion in support of Wolfe went unexpressed until after the meeting, when he reproached planning board chair Robert Price for failing to open up the meeting to public comment before adjournment. Price apologized for the oversight.

Comp plan

“The input from a rural planning consultant” presumably refers to Nan Stolzenburg, whose Berne-based consulting business, Community Planning and Environmental Associates, has been serving as a consultant to the town comprehensive plan committee, which is headed by council member Amy Pokorny.

Asked to comment, Stolzenburg says she doesn’t remember giving any specific advice to the town or  planning board regarding the proposed business district at 156/167. However she says she has enunciated a general principle to the town: “A community that wants to promote business in its traditional center [the Knox hamlet in this case] may dilute their effort by creating additional districts outside the center.”

She also said she received a draft of the new comprehensive plan “just after Christmas,” and is reviewing it and expects to provide her commentary in “the next couple of weeks.”

“Developing a comprehensive plan takes a lot of time,” she said. “They [the Knox committee) have been working diligently and have been very thorough and comprehensive.”

Disagreement over how to count and interpret the results of surveys conducted to get public input to the new planning effort may emerge as an issue when the new plan moves to public hearings. Wolfe and other say the surveys’ reports undercount the degree of support for business creation in the the town.

In her comments to The Enterprise, Pokorny said, “There is a lot of support for business in the town...the challenge is to create good business opportunities and to balance that with protecting the town’s rural character.”

Pokorny says she thinks a promising direction for new business creation is in “agricultural and ecotourism opportunities...We have to be very creative in developing the assets we have.”

Pokorny and her husband, now the town’s assessor, had successfully run the Knox store and café, a popular community gathering place and destination for visitors that the Lefkaditis project hopes to emulate at the same location.  The Pokornys also built and operate The Octagon Barn, a venue for music, dancing, astronomical observing, and other community events.

Wolfe’s opposition to the planning board’s reluctance to create additional business districts has been long-standing. He fully stated his dissenting opinion in June when the town board heard for the first time — but not the last — the planning board advise against a second  business district at 156 /157.

Wolfe said his fellow board members’  opinion that new business should be promoted in the existing business district —  the hamlet — is “flawed,” because “there is little room for expansion there, the lots are small, and there is no water supply.”

Unlike his fellow planning board members, he also sees no impediment to a second business district “in the lack of suitable road infrastructure, and the lack of  adequate road and sewage facilities” at 156/157.

“For decades many small businesses had been established and thrived absent such amenities” in the area, he contends.  Current businesses there include Armstrong Furniture and Machinery, Mae’s Nursery, and the Mountain Woodshop, he said.

He says the town’s small population, the lack of infrastructure, and local geology are factors that necessarily discourage any large business from coming to town.

Wolfe told The Enterprise this week, “Site limitations combined with planning board and zoning board review will limit what can  happen there within those constraints.”   

His model of small business creation sounds not so different from Pokorny’s. The difference may be their vision of what types of business — no matter how small — are suitable in a town that had 2,145 residents in 1845 and 2,692 in 2010.

Corrected on Jan. 23, 2017: A misheard word in a quote from Amy Pokorny was changed from "cultural" to "agricultural."