Had developer Philip Geras waited a few months before starting his project of converting a dilapidated former seasonal hunting cabin/lodge into an apartment complex, it is safe to say it would have stalled and, in fact, might never have seen the light of day. But the Tusten Town Board didn’t impose its moratorium on the construction of multi-family houses in the town until after Geras initiated the paperwork on his project. So a 10-unit apartment development on a two-acre lot—which is being expanded to three acres—is going to go forward, in a neighborhood of mostly single-family homes on lots of three acres or larger.

Geras’s lawyer, Zachery Kelson, repeatedly argued at the planning board meeting that town zoning allows for the project. The town lawyer and all of the town planning board members agreed. One can see the grounds for that argument, and yet still find fault with the outcome in relation to the overall zoning plan of the town.

First, let’s take the intent of the zoning law itself. According to the code, the purpose of the law is to bolster the town’s comprehensive plan, by insuring the “preservation of the scenic and natural assets of the Town, and of the rural residential character of the Town, and to discourage commercial or industrial development that is inconsistent with such preservation….”

In considering whether or not Geras’ project should be approved, one could certainly argue that a 10-family apartment house is not in keeping with the town’s rural character.

Another problem becomes apparent if one looks at the district in which the project is to be created. The dilapidated hunting club is located in the Rural Residential District (R1), which generally is home to single-family houses. In the zoning code, the language describing the intent of the R1 district reads, “Rural Residential District is intended to provide for low-density residential development in combination with compatible commercial activities appropriate to rural areas of the Town of Tusten.”

Reasonable people can disagree, but it is hard to believe that 10 families living in close proximity on about three acres of land is what the zoning authors had in mind with the adjective “low-density.”

Another part of the code says that zoning decisions should seek to avoid over-density of any one type of development in one area. With the construction of Geras’s project, there will be two multi-family buildings in the same neighborhood.

Yet another basic principle of zoning is to avoid bringing down property values in the neighborhood of a proposed project. This really gets to the crux of the matter as far as the town’s current property owners are concerned. It would be a simple matter for a planning board to require that a developer hire a licensed appraiser to determine what impact a project would have on neighboring properties, but for whatever reason that never seems to happen, in any of the towns we are familiar with.

These as well as other reasons provide solid grounds to say “no” to the project. But as so often seems to be the case with most planning boards, this board ignored large parts of the town zoning code. The board looked only to the place in the code that says multi-family houses may be a special use in an R1 District, and decided in favor of the developer.

Zoning should be much more than that. From the Tusten Town code: “As the United States Supreme Court stated in Village of Belle Terre v. Borass, the concept of public welfare is broad and inclusive.... The values that it represents are spiritual as well as physical, aesthetic as well as monetary. It is within the power of the [local] legislature to determine that the community should be beautiful as well as healthy, spacious as well as clean, well balanced as well as carefully patrolled... The police power is not confined to elimination of filth, stench, and unhealthy places. It is ample to lay out zones where family values, youth values, and the blessings of quiet seclusion and clean air make the area a sanctuary for people.”

This is not a question of whether Geras will create a nice-looking facility. He has created an apartment house in the Town of Cochecton and, by all accounts, it is an attractive facility. The question, instead, should be whether the people currently living next to the hunting lodge are going to be negatively impacted by suddenly living next to 10 more families. We suspect the answer is “yes.”

Perhaps, to avoid similar outcomes in the future, multi-family homes should simply be removed as a special use from the R1 district in Tusten.