The Town of Liberty is considering a one-year moratorium on the establishment of new summer camps in the town. This is a legal and appropriate process which is often used by municipalities across the state in the process of updating local zoning codes. According to the notice announcing a public hearing on the question, the purpose of the moratorium is to give town officials enough time to “reasonably evaluate, consider and determine what revisions are necessary to the Zoning Law in order to protect and enhance public health, safety and welfare.”

The local law spelling out the specifics of the moratorium says, “The Town of Liberty already has a significant number of existing summer camps and is experiencing developmental pressure in the form of growing interest in the establishment of additional summer camps, as well as expansion of existing summer camps.”

What kind of changes could the board adopt? Actually, town boards have a great deal of leeway in zoning matters.

In the Town of Neversink, for instance, the requirements for camps include a 300-foot setback from all other properties and substantial buffering, which would pretty much insure that anyone looking to create a summer camp would not go shopping for property in the Town of Neversink.

In the Town of Liberty, certainly, there is a need to reduce the impact of summer camps on neighboring properties. There is a house across the street from Camp Agudah that has been vacant for several years. It’s a modest, nice-looking ranch that was foreclosed when the couple that formerly lived there became too frail and elderly to stay. In 2003, the camp built a large dormitory directly across the street from the house, about 20 feet from the street. If that dormitory had not been built, that home across the street would likely have been inhabited years ago.

That dormitory, incidentally, was built in violation of town code, which required a public hearing that was never held. Had the neighbors at the time been able to convince the planning board that the building was too close to the house across the street, the planning board might have decided to compel the camp to locate the building elsewhere on the property, mitigating the impact on the home. The planning board has behaved in exactly this way in other circumstances.

Currently, new summer camps are allowed only in the rural development zone, which accounts for about a third of the land in the town. But along with changes to the regulations regarding new summer camps, the board will also consider changes to the code regarding summer camps that are operating as nonconforming uses, which are facilities that may have been allowed to exist years ago, but have since been prohibited because of later zoning regulations. There are many camps in the town that are located in residential neighborhoods, where, under current zoning, summer camps are now prohibited and the existing camps are nonconforming uses.

There are many municipalities in the state that have adopted zoning laws that prohibit the expansion of nonconforming uses. In 2005, the Town of Thompson adopted a local law to do that. In 2014, the Town of Bethel made the same move adopting a local law that read in part, “Any enlargement or expansion of a nonconforming use is expressly prohibited.” That two of the neighboring towns have adopted laws that are not friendly to summer camps may be one reason there is increased interest in the Town of Liberty.

In any case, the New York State Court Appeals, the state’s highest court, believes that nonconforming uses should eventually fade away. The court wrote of nonconforming uses in 1996, “the highest priority of zoning is their reasonable restriction and eventual elimination.”

The purpose of zoning is to protect the public health, safety welfare, while at the same time preventing incompatible uses from being created in the same neighborhoods. It is well past time that the Town of Liberty move to protect its taxpayers from expanding nonconforming uses that may have a negative impact on property values and to adopt new regulations to mitigate the impacts of any new summer camps in the areas of town where they are permitted to exist. You can let the town board know your feelings about the issue via an email to the town clerk Laurie Dutcher at l.dutcher@townofliberty.org or by calling 845/292-5110.