MILFORD – What does the future hold for the rural landscape that defines central New York? Will ever increasing real estate property values put a price tag on farmland that will be too hard to resist? Will the percentage of desirable undeveloped land shrink as the suburban sprawl crawls over the lush green fields and hillsides of towns like Cherry Valley, Warren, Milford, Richfield, Springfield and Otsego? Environmentalists, public officials, farmers, students and a score of others gathered together to discuss this very problem and possible solutions to prevent what has happened down state from occurring in their backyards. “This seems to be a regional concern,” said Martha Frey, executive director of Otsego 2000, the organization that hosted the conference held last Friday in Milford. The conference, entitled, Countryside, Town and Village: Strategies for Maintaining Rural Character, featured three speakers, author and Regional Planner Tom Daniels; Cheryl Doble, associate professor and director of the Center for Community Design Research at New York College, and Linda Dickerson Hartsock, Cortland County’s BDC-IDA executive director. Daniels’ focus was Keeping Ahead of Change: Planning for Rural Protection, as he showed how land use planning can effectively minimize poor development, keep areas green and natural, decrease pollution and wear on the infrastructure, and help retain the rural character of a community. “I’m not here to tell you what to do. That decision will be yours that you will have to live with long into the future,” Daniels said. He described the various types of rural spread and potential solutions, which included design, regulations, financial incentives, infrastructure investments (keeping communities within walking distance of their villages by keeping government offices within the village Main Street areas), “and prayer,” he joked. “That is the most heavily used technique. In some places it actually works.” Later in the program, Dickerson Hartsock quipped back at Daniels when she announced that she would be borrowing that last solution and adding it to her list. “What is a good village,” asked Daniels. “You can see out to the countryside, so that you feel like you’re a part of it. There are mixed uses. The buildings are on a human scale. There is a slow pace of life. And there is public space, a green common area, a courthouse square, a gathering place.” One of Frey’s concerns with upstate New York addressed the slow death many villages are experiencing, even villages like Richfield Springs, that once was a thriving metropolis at the turn of the century. “There’s a new shopping plaza (outside the village) that’s not entirely filled yet. On the other side of the village there’s an empty Great American. There are empty store fronts within the village. I wonder what is going to be the future of Richfield Springs,” she said. “It’s a great community struggling to survive.” Keeping housing communities within walking distance of villages is key to keeping a village alive. Villages tend to get bypassed when housing developments are sprawled out, rather than clustered close, when cul de sacs and winding roads and large buffers placed between the developments and village leave residents cut off from the heart of the community. It’s easier to hop in your car and drive somewhere than it is to walk to the village to do your shopping. There are agencies that can provide assistance, financial, planning or just resources on where to turn for help. “There are sources of funding for farmland preservation,” Daniels said. Some of these organizations include the Federal Farmland Protection Program, the State of NY Farmland Preservation Program, and land trusts, like those located in Otsego, Schoharie, Cazenovia, Chenango and Delaware counties, are out there ready with funding for people to utilize. Other forms of funding can be found through state grants and the New York Conservation Easement tax credit. Doble focused on design of communities, saying that “design is a process that needs to be a community process that builds understanding and gives the people the opportunity to make sound decisions.” She said her organization provides communities with the tools to bring much needed change and revitalization to their villages. Creating a center of town is vital to keep a community alive. “What’s wrong with upstate New York,” asked Dickerson Hartsock. “Maybe nothing,” she answered herself. She then presented a slide show of all the things good about living in upstate New York and noted that, sometimes, a community has only to learn what their strengths are and build on them to revitalize its area. But then she also warned of over development. “Be careful what you wish for,” she warned. “Leading a fast life isn’t always leading a real life.”
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