WESTERLO — As Westerlo’s planning board works on a plan for the town’s future, farmers came to Town Hall last Thursday to hear from an expert on farmland protection.
"We talk about ‘farmland protection.’ What we really need to be talking about is ‘protecting farming’ — keeping value in that land," said Gary Kleppel, the director of the Biodiversity, Conservation, and Policy Program at the University at Albany. "[Getting] money out of that land while still doing what you do and protecting the values and the landscapes that you have that make it worth putting on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt in the morning, getting on a tractor, and thinking, ‘My God, I’m the luckiest person in the world.’"

Kleppel lectured on transfer of development rights for much of the meeting.
"I realize that agriculture is something that’s completely not understood by most people," Kleppel said. "What most of us talk about is ‘preserving open space,’ which I hate, because it’s not ‘open space.’ It’s my home"and it’s going to be my business some day, when I finally start making money."

Nearly 30 Westerlo farmers were contacted by Jack Milner and Gerald Boone, members of Westerlo’s planning board. Both are farmers.
Transfer of development rights is a farmland-protection tool where farmers sell their rights to develop, most often to a developer. A town can set up "receiving zones" where the rights can be used. These may be areas within the town that are more densely populated and where development may be desired, such as a hamlet. A town can also set up "sending zones" — areas where landowners are allowed to sell their rights.

Using transfer of development rights, the rights from a farm in Westerlo could be used to develop within the town or outside the town — in another town, city, county, or state. After selling his rights to develop, a landowner could continue to live on his land and would still pay taxes on the property.
"How are you going to get people to agree to having receiving areas in their backyard"" a resident asked. Kleppel said the development may not be within the town. He gave examples of transfer of development rights being used — when converting a vacant parking lot into a shopping complex and when adding a second story to a building. Leonard Laub, the chairman of the town’s planning board, cited the nearby city of Cohoes, which, he said, is eager to have more development.
The Hilltowns’ zoning ordinances give the community little opportunity to direct its own development, Kleppel said. He said of transfer of development rights, "You [the community] are in control, not a guy from New Jersey."
"I don’t like the community having control of my property," said a resident.
"It’s hard to get two people to agree"," said another resident.
"Especially in New York," said Kleppel. Kleppel, who is originally from New York, lived in California for 20 years before returning to the Empire State in 2000. He lives in the nearby town of Knox and owns a sheep farm.

Planning possibilities
"Is there a point to making some more complicated zoning"" Laub asked a large crowd at Town Hall.

The town’s planning board has been given the task of creating the town’s first comprehensive land-use plan. The plan will be used as a template for the town’s zoning laws and subdivision regulations. While the planning board drafts the plan, the town board is Westerlo’s legislative body and has the final say on which laws are put in place.
"The idea is not to impose something on people. It’s to have the town do something that actually gives people a better alternative," said Laub. "If there is such an alternative, we want to identify and implement it. If there isn’t, we’re wasting our time trying to come up with something just for the sake of having a plan."

Laub said he was excited by transfer of development rights but will be comfortable recommending to the town board that there’s no real benefit to a comprehensive plan if the planning board finds there’s nothing the residents want to do.
Milner gave an example of clustering in a nine-acre field with three houses. He said it’s best to put the houses together "instead of ruining the whole hay field."
"Pretty soon," Milner said, "all these fields are going to be gone."
One woman asked why the town wouldn’t "up" its current zoning of one dwelling per three or five acres to a less dense requirement of 10 or 15 acres.
Laub cited the adjacent town of Rensselaerville, which recently adopted new zoning laws. Laub said the larger lot requirement proposed in Rensselaerville was "violently opposed."

Last fall, the Rensselaerville Town Board sent a survey to residents who were to choose between one house per five acres or one per 20 acres in the town’s agricultural district. Of about 1,000 responses, nearly two-thirds voted for five acres.
Last week’s meeting was the first in a series that Westerlo’s planning board intends to hold with "special-interest groups"; the board has discussed meeting with the town’s business owners, with residents of Lake Onderdonk, and with those who live in the town’s various hamlets. Meeting dates and times have not yet been scheduled for the various groups, Laub told The Enterprise last week.

Laub has repeatedly said that the planning board wants to hear as much input as it can from the town’s residents during the planning process.

Kleppel said he will send to Town Hall: a list of books; the state’s transfer-of-development-rights law; and a book by the Brandywine Conservancy, which includes steps and samples of communities using transfer of development rights.
"We’re going to do this again," Laub told The Enterprise on Tuesday. "People are interested."
Laub said the planning board plans to do "more of the same" and that the meeting last week had given momentum to planning. Not having additional meetings with the town’s farmers, he said, "would be a waste of that momentum."