Altamont is an attractive and vibrant village. One of the reasons why is because of wise planning.

In 2006, Dean Whalen, an architect who served for 16 years as a village trustee, headed the committee that drafted the village’s first comprehensive plan.

Such a plan lets a community take stock of itself and lay out what it values most. If all goes well, as it has in Altamont, the tenets of the plan are then codified into zoning laws.

Two boards with very different, distinct functions are entrusted with seeing that laws and planning work well for a municipality in New York State.

The planning board has both advisory and regulatory powers. As in Altamont, its members are instrumental in drafting and then updating the comprehensive plan that guides the community. Planning boards offer advice on land-use studies and regulations, on capital budgets, on area variance requests, and on proposed actions to other boards.

Regulatory powers include the planning board’s review of subdivision plats, site plans, and signs as well as historic preservation and architectural view — with these powers delegated by the elected village board. The board must also decide, as outlined by the state, on the need for environmental review of a project.

A zoning board of appeals, on the other hand, serves a safety-valve function. A quasi-judicial board, it allows property owners a chance to assert their rights to use their property as they see fit.

In 1925, a New York State Supreme Court, in Oneida County, in People v. Kerner, found: “The creation of a board of appeals, with discretionary powers to meet specific cases of hardship or specific instances of improper classification, is not to destroy zoning as a policy, but to save it.

“The property of citizens cannot and ought not to be placed within a strait-jacket. Not only may there be grievous injury caused by the immediate act of zoning, but time itself works changes which require adjustment. What might be reasonable today might not be reasonable tomorrow.”

We are delineating these basic board functions not just because it is useful for all citizens to understand but because the mayor of Altamont, Kerry Dineen, has proposed abolishing both the zoning and planning boards for the village to replace them with a single zoning board of appeals.

The reasons Dineen has given are flawed.

She said it would make a more streamlined process for applicants. To speed projects through for developers is counterproductive.

Village property owners seeking a safety valve for a particular hardship deserve to be heard by a qualified and informed zoning board. And Altamont residents in general are well served by a planning board that can see the big picture. Again, the boards serve two distinct functions.

Another reason given by Dineen is to save money yet she could not provide specific numbers on what the savings would be. The total line item in Altamont’s 2021-22 budget for the planning board is about $4,400. This is a very small portion of the village’s $2.5 million budget.

The state requires that planning and zoning board members undergo training — a minimum of four hours each year — which we believe is money well spent. The training allows them to do their jobs capably and fairly.

Dineen has asserted that the zoning board’s sparse meeting schedule doesn’t allow its members to use their training. Our village reporter, Sean Mulkerrin, who has been covering Dineen’s proposal since she first broached it, tallied board meetings for the last decade and determined the zoning board has met roughly 38 times while the planning board has met about 63 times.

With the 2008 adoption of the zoning based on Altamont’s year-old comprehensive plan, the new code stated the planning board is to “have all the powers” related to site-plan and subdivision review, as ascribed in the state’s Village Law.

That change increased the number of planning board meetings. To do away now with that vision and that function would not serve residents well. The relatively small costs for training the members who serve is worth the expenditure.

The hearing last week on Dineen’s local law ran aground because Whalen and others felt misled since the new zoning board had been construed as having seven voting members and one alternate while Dineen’s actual intention was to have five voting members and two alternates.

We’re less concerned with this discrepancy over the number of members than we are over the entire concept of having one board to serve two distinct functions. We’re grateful that the error or misrepresentation caused the hearing to stay open while a new bill is drafted.

This will give the village trustees and the public time to consider several important issues raised at the hearing.

Harvey Vlahos, a former trustee, made the point that, when the longtime chairman of the zoning board, Maurice McCormick, wasn’t reappointed to the post, it was under the guise that a lot of people want to serve.

Altamont is fortunate to have so many people interested in serving their village. The more voices that are heard, and the more diverse the viewpoints, the better.

Dineen said at last week’s hearing that, if there is a vacancy on one of the boards, she asks the trustees if they know anybody who would be interested in filling the post.

“There’s a lot of people in the village that just aren’t connected with maybe some of the board members,” said McCormick.

We agree that positions should be advertised. Trustees, of course, are entrusted with making the final selection but, if they cast a wider net than just the people they know, the boards are likely to better serve diverse elements of the community.

McCormick also took issue with Dineen’s comment that applicants have to trudge back and forth between the two boards. In his 20 years on the zoning board, save for Stewart’s half-decade attempt to get a new Altamont store built, “everything seemed to get done at one time,” he said.

Government is made up of public servants. Two boards — for planning and for zoning — best serve the public. Whatever small, undetermined savings there would be by abolishing the planning board would be far outweighed by the loss of its perspective.

Further, going forward, posts on both boards should be filled by reaching out to the community at large rather than relying on friends of those in power. Our strength as a democracy comes from our diversity.