RHINEBECK >> The Town Board is sorting through a state review of the Red Wing Sand and Gravel application for expanding mining and a separate upstate court case about zoning for mines.
Town lawyer Warren Replansky said Tuesday that it could be a month or more before the board is ready to vote on a map that conforms with the local Comprehensive Plan.
“Our legal consultants … are paying very close attention to what’s been happening with a similar situation in the town of Schoharie,” he said.
Replansky said after Tuesday’s board meeting that Schoharie has adopted a law that prohibits mining in an agricultural district.
“They also had a similar application from a mining applicant who owned property that was affected by the rezoning, and they’ve been in litigation for something like nine years,” he said.
“The issues are very similar to what we’re doing here in terms of a vested right claim by a non-conforming use,” Replansky added. “So there’s been a spate of court decisions relating to what they did there that we want to analyze carefully to make sure we don’t make any mistakes in what we’re proposing here for the town.”
The Rhinebeck Town Board has spent much of the past two years trying to adopt a map that reflects the intent of the Comprehensive Plan adopted in 2009. The plan calls for mining to be limited to existing operations on three properties along White Schoolhouse Road, but the map produced by Dutchess County shows the entire property of each mine site as the impacted area.
Red Wing Sand and Gravel filed a state application in 2008 to develop a new 125-acre mine accompanied by an 84-acre lake adjacent to a depleted 36.5-acre mine on its property. The town Planning Board last year turned down a request by Red Wing to renew the existing permit for the 36.5 acres.
Red Wing co-owner Paul Doherty said in March that the state application was amended recently to propose the new mine be reduced from 125 acres to 94 acres. Town officials have said they want to know what the revisions are before moving forward on correcting the map.
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