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Agriculture Advisory Commission
Town of Dryden
April 10, 2013
Members Present: Evan Carpenter (Chair), Kim LaMotte, Joe Osmeloski, and Douglas
Barton. Steven Stuttle (Absent)
Staff Present: Jane Nicholson (Town Planner)
Town Board Liaison: Stephen Stelick and Jason Leifer (absent)
Conservation Board Liaison: Craig Schutt
Planning Board Liaison: Craig Anderson
Guests: none
Chairman Carpenter opened the meeting at 7:40 PM.
E. Carpenter stated he was not able to contact Steve Stuttle this month. None of the other
Commission members have talked with him either so the Commission doesn’t know for
sure that he is going to serve.
E. Carpenter showed the Commission a map of Dryden that displayed the land parcels and who
owns them (provided by Nancy Munkenbeck who purchased it from the Town of Dryden
GIS technician, Joshua Bogdan). At the bottom of the map, Ms. Munkenbeck has identified
Evan Carpenter’s property as #1, has his name, the number of the lots that are on there, the
land that he owns, and the land that he rents. And if he owns land and is renting it to someone
else, he is hoping to have that identified as well. The only problem he sees with the map Ms.
Munkenbeck brought is its size. It is a large map but with a lot of detail. The map is not
completely up-to-date but it will give the Commission an idea of the options. He then
showed two other maps to generate ideas. What size maps would be good to work with
during the open space inventory in the Town? He suggested working the soil and water
conservation department to determine what land in the Town is actually agricultural use land
versus woods.
J. Osmeloski wondered why we needed to identify the spaces.
E. Carpenter responded that the Planning Department wants an open space inventory that
includes agricultural space
K. LaMotte asked for a definition of open space? Is it simply space that does not have a building
on it? J. Nicholson responded that for the Open Space Plan, open space consists of recreation,
conservation and agriculture (broken down into crop land, brush land, pasture, etc.). D. Barton
asked about timbering. E. Carpenter did not believe that it qualified as agriculture even if it was
managed but C. Anderson said he thought it did qualify as open space but it would probably fall
under the Conservation portion of open space rather than the Agriculture portion. D. Barton
asked why timber would not be agricultural product. Comes down to whether it was managed
land or not managed.
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J. Nicholson had a handout that had a listing of the land (how many farms are there, etc., in
Dryden). The handout was definitely outdated but at least it gave an example of what the
Planning Department wants from the Ag. Commission. She then referred back to E.
Carpenter’s earlier comment regarding covering all the farmable land, not just the land that is
currently owned by a farmer. This would include lands rented from and rented to whom. This
will require some time on the ground which led to E. Carpenter asking how important that
information is? J. Nicholson responded that she believes it will be very important and has
indicated that a lot of the time put into finding out the information will be by her and her staff.
D. Barton said that when he retires, there is no way his family will be able to keep the farm
without selling off building lots. They can’t afford it.
FarmNet program – C. Anderson said that there are some mentoring programs out there that can
help farmers connect with younger folks who are interested in farming. Then the farm doesn’t
necessarily have to be chopped up and sold. D. Barton said he was talking about the level of
taxes, which is getting too high for him to keep up with the property he has (not great farm
land). He is retired but has to work to pay the taxes.
C. Anderson revisited the conversation regarding why we need to do the Open Space Plan. He
brought a copy of the Comprehensive Plan, which created the zoning law which created
the subdivision law which created the residential and commercial design guidelines. The
Open Space Plan will be part of the guidelines, not a law but strong guidelines of what the
town wants the builders to do. In the previous documents, Open Space is discussed but not
what it is. He went through the process that got us to where we are now. This will be
comparable to the Town’s subdivision guidelines.
J. Nicholson said that if a person wanted to develop open space the only concrete guidelines are in
the Conservation sub-division laws. C. Anderson - In the zoning law, they talk about scenic
views from the road but there is no definition. There are some vague terms in there that need to
be defined and part of the definition is the Agricultural Open Space.
E. Carpenter pointed out that it depends on what direction we want the open space to be going in.
Are we talking about open space as the fields or like the open space on the map which has three
parks on his property? That map is in the Comprehensive Plan. What does the town want to
see? Really open space where you can stand on one hillside and look to the other hillside and
not have to worry about the middle being closed space?
D. Barton thinks they are looking for entertainment. He is worried that the open spaces they want
is for recreational purposes to bring more people to the area instead of trying to maintain the
farm land which has created the open spaces. Once people move in and build houses they take
away the Open Space. Once the houses are there, the open space and beauty that initially
attracted people is gone. He feels like they are trying to put the farmers out of business.
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D. Barton stated that the price of milk has not gone up much since 1977. E. Carpenter – the price
of milk has gone up but so has the price of everything else. To try to maintain, the Barton’s
raised their fees and the people left. E. Carpenter said that the operating cost in 1980 was 50 %
of a milk check, now it is 80%.
C. Anderson said that since this is an advisory board, it is their job to advise the Town Board.
What is really the number one concern for the farmer? They need to let the Town Board know
what the issues are.
D. Barton said that it is not the things proposed but the things that are happening already that are
having a negative impact. On Irish Settlement Road, the Fingerlakes Land Trust has just bought
a large tract of land right next door to him and it has already affected him. People are coming in,
there has been an increase in traffic and people want to build houses up there and want a piece
of his land. It is close by, and the people wanting to buy are not looking for preserving land but
recreation. They say it’s for preservation but he thinks it is for more people to come up and
roam the woods.
K. LaMotte said that she has issues with folks who don’t recognize the difference between public
land/trails and private land. She said folks have given all kinds of excuses like, “I don’t have
any other place to walk my dog” and “its great for 4-wheeling” and “you don’t mind if we ride
our horses”.
D. Barton has created a designated trail for the snowmobiles so they are not traversing his land
wherever they want. He used to be the only place between Hammond Hill and Yellow Barn
State forests. Four wheelers, dirt bikes, horses, hikers all use his property. C. Anderson put up
fencing but had to do it over a three year period because putting fencing up across trails (even
on your own property) can lead to lawsuits and/or injuries. Some people actually cut the fence,
some took the fence down and put it back up. He also mentioned the problem of non-agriculture
related drivers failing to respect the slower moving agriculture related vehicles. The average
person doesn’t understand the meaning of an agricultural area nor the caution (respect)
necessary to maintain safety.
K. LaMotte said that both houses, the milk truck and the tractors have been hit. C. Anderson said
that he thinks a lot of that is due to a lack of education and understanding regarding farm
vehicles (this was met with an “eruption” of comments). E. Carpenter pointed out that a lot of
young people don’t understand the basics – a left arm held out straight (a left turn signal) is not
always understood. J. Osmeloski said that tractors on the road are seen as an “inconvenience”
to other drivers.
E. Carpenter related a story about his son and his driver’s education class in high school. One of
the questions was “when you come the crest of a hill and you see a tractor and wagon in front of
you, what do you do?” The four options for answers were all incorrect. He told the teacher after
the test that the right answer was “slow down and when it is safe pass, then you pass”.
According to the teacher, the correct answer was “swerve around them”.
D. Barton asked what you are supposed to do when the state trooper arrives at your back door with
a summons because you got the inside of someone’s car dirty with manure because they drove
through it while you were going to the field. E. Carpenter said he takes the scraper with him and
has been in the road scraping and cars will come by and “splat, splat, splat” even though they
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could just move over or slow down some. D. Barton said these are city people that haven’t got
a clue and they want the atmosphere of the country, “the easy country life” (although he has
never enjoyed a laid back easy country life).
The discussion turned to the lack of respect that farmers are getting - the fact that people don’t
tend to respect the farmers and their land. As E. Carpenter said, they would have a conniption
fit if he drove his tractor across their back lawn but don’t have any problem driving their car
across his back forty. K. LaMotte “they want to tell us what to do but yet they trample all over
us like we are there for their vision. The people next to us throw everything, the pumpkin, the
rotten lattice from under the deck, the dead Christmas tree, all over our fence.” The neighbor’s
response is that it isn’t hurting anything but if Kim threw it back on their side, they would have
a problem. D. Barton said that is the kind of thing that is happening up on Irish Settlement and
all around. The parks are attracting the city dwellers. K. LaMotte came back to one of her
earlier questions about how to keep the people off private land, so it is not used as a park. D.
Barton is happy to share any part of his farm with anybody that wants to respect it. (General
agreement from the other members of the commission)
K. LaMotte said that she doesn’t understand why the Town goes and says this is open space or this
is a conservation district so they are putting it on these maps and people are going “oh, this is a
conservation area or that’s a recreation area.” She asked “why designate it that if it is
somebody’s private land, why should that be put anyplace that its recreation or best for
conservation.”
C. Anderson responded that he has had a conversation with some members of the Planning Board.
They look at the word conservation as “to conserve” and that is where they came up with the
idea of conservation subdivision where they cluster the houses to conserve more land for later
generations.
J. Nicholson said that the conservation subdivision (clustering) is also good because it keeps the
electric, water and sewer from expanding too far out. This is why J. Nicholson thinks it is
critical because we do need to define Agriculture and get a better understanding of the bigger
issues. The Conservation Board is going to deal with the (passive) recreation side of the Open
Space Plan. She now feels that there is a cross between recreation and farming Open Space.
C. Anderson suggested that we start with the inventory. J. Nicholson agreed since the information
that she passed out earlier was obviously outdated. To help guide us to where we want to go, we
need to know what is out there and what the issues are and how we are going to put some
guidelines/boundaries in.
The information that J. Nicholson had passed out earlier stated that the Town of Dryden had 10
farms in the town. A quick calculation among the members of the commission determined that
there are only 6 actual dairy farms in Dryden. D. Barton – in the 1950s sixty percent of
Dryden’s income was from farming, today only about three percent is from farming.
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K. LaMotte pointed out that it would be better if we define “farm” and decide how to identify
“farms”. E. Carpenter said we could look at who has an agriculture value assessment on their
property. C. Schutt suggested looking at people who file taxes with a schedule F. The monetary
level necessary to get the ag assessment is $10,000 but there doesn’t seem like there is an acre
minimum. J. Osmeloski brought the conversation back to the fact that we need to define
“farm”. J. Nicholson commented that this job will be easier if we know what we are looking for
and D. Barton cautioned the group about putting labels out there and offending someone. C.
Anderson doesn’t think it will be an issue since this has nothing to do with taxes and is just an
inventory of the land usage in the Town. D. Barton agreed but he pointed out that during a
conversation he has had with Supervisor Sumner, the two of them agreed that “it” might mean
x now but once they are no longer around to define “it”, the meaning could easily be changed.
Joe Osmeloski said the farm census was just held and the information is out there but who
determined who needed a farm census? C. Anderson said that if the Town was open to taking
a grant, a Farmland Protection Grant, a lot of this information could be done through a
subcontractor and then the Town could mine the information to fill in the blanks.
J. Nicholson said this has come up before and from what she understands, the minute the grant
comes in, then the State starts to come in and have say over how things are done. The Towns of
Ithaca and Ulysses have Farmland Protection and C. Schutt says he would like to see Dryden
have something like that. The state does lay out what they want to see in the plan but they
would be giving the Town up to $25000.
K. LaMotte offered the following resolution:
Whereas, the Agricultural Advisory Commission has been charged with
identifying Agricultural Open Space for the purpose of farmland protection; and
Whereas, the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets offers a grant to assist
counties and municipalities develop and implement farmland protection plans; and
Whereas, the Town of Dryden and the Agriculture Advisory Commission lack the funds, skills
and access to accurately identify the myriad variety and locations of agricultural production in the
Town; and
Therefore, be it resolved that the Agricultural Advisory Commission recommends the Town of
Dryden apply for funding for the purpose of identification and protection of agricultural open
spaces.
D. Barton seconded the motion. All members of the Commission approved the recommendation.
C. Anderson suggested that the Commission’s focus has been substantially narrowed and he
recommended that they start looking at the land that isn’t leased or rented, land that doesn’t
have an agricultural exemption. He is concerned that land might fall through the cracks or may
be seen as simply open space. Marty Hatch has a property that is being used as community
gardens, they are not making money on it but as a community it is generating food for people
and it is “open”. C. Anderson thinks those are the kind of properties that will be missed; the
farms with a few horses or a couple head of cattle in the back yard. There are definitely a lot of
horses in the Town.
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D. Barton said there was a study done in the 1950s of the number of horses that were used for
farming. As of today, there is something like 100 times that number of horses.
D. Barton recalled a Town Board meeting when they were talking about Ithaca’s water supply and
he told them that we were here before Ithaca was, since 1838. K. LaMotte added that we were
here before all the problems were here and they think they are here to save us.
C. Anderson said the Town is willing to listen but they need to hear more. For example, the
drilling ban hurts farmers, the farmer that has had a gas lease for years won’t get re-signed
because of the ban. K. LaMotte questioned whether anyone would even care or notice if the
farmers were gone, because farmers have become a minority in the Town. C. Anderson brought
up the fact that farmers are already facing an uphill challenge based on monies from the
government via PDR. (Purchase of Development Rights) The larger farms (Stuttle, Jerry Dell,
Cornell) are able to pay high rates for land, which the small farmer cannot compete with.
C. Anderson asked the Commission and J. Nicholson if they wanted to concentrate on the smaller
farms, hobby farms, the ones that would otherwise fall through the cracks?
E. Carpenter said we need to define Agriculture, hobby versus farming. D. Barton asked what
would be considered a hobby and what wasn’t. J. Osmeloski reminded the commission that the
census had a cryptic definition of Agriculture on it.
A place like Erin Bieber’s would be considered open space and agriculture without it getting the
agricultural assessment. It is used for agricultural purposes but without any profit so it would be
a “hobby” that still has open space and agricultural purposes.
D. Barton talked with Kathy Keene at Tompkins County Assessment. She said she could
understand his point about his assessment (the issue of it going up thousands of dollars) but
she said a lot of folks are complaining about an increase of a couple hundred dollars. J.
Osmeloski pointed out that the person complaining about $100 is more likely to get a
reduction because it won’t hurt Tompkins County as much (a 50% decrease only “costs” the
County $50 versus the financial hit it would take if D. Barton’s taxes were decreased by 50%)
D. Barton thinks part of the Assessment issue is happening because the County let the rate
stagnate in the past years.
J. Osmeloski asked whether we should have an agenda? It was agreed that the Commission should
have one even if it is a very basic outline. E. Carpenter was focused on getting the map from
Nancy Munkenbeck and had sent an email with his expectations for the meeting.
D. Barton asked if the group was a commission, a board, a committee? And what the difference is
between them.
J. Nicholson replied that this was a commission whose job was to advise the Town Board. To be a
board requires a local law via the Town Board. J. Osmeloski asked what the difference is
between a board and commission. C. Schutt responded using the Conservation Board as an
example; they were a committee but once they passed the open space plan, they became a board
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through local law. However, they don’t have any greater reach, their job is still to advise the
Town Board. J. Osmeloski verified that this Commission could eventually become a board or
could be dissolved, it depends on the Town Board.
K. LaMotte said that Tompkins County has an Agricultural Protection Plan and asked about other
local towns? C. Schutt and J. Nicholson explained that the Towns of Ithaca and Lansing have
Protection Plans and Ulysses has it in their Comprehensive Plan but may not have done
anything yet.
C. Anderson said he thinks the Open Space Plan should address the Agricultural protection issue.
K. LaMotte has concerns about the Recreation plan designating open space. She pointed out the
need to protect private land and making sure that the land that is private is kept private and
unavailable to the recreation programs. D. Barton made the point that he is perfectly willing to
share with cross country skiers, bird watchers, snow mobiles, etc. He feels a measure of pride
when he sees someone taking pictures of what he already know is beautiful. He pointed out that
when he was younger and wanted to hunt on someone else’s land, he had to go to that person’s
home and asked permission. Today a lot of folks just do it, not understanding the danger of the
situation.
D. Barton shared a story of a guy who was at the end of his driveway and fired a shot across the
road. When Doug approached him, the man said he had D. Barton’s permission. D. Barton
introduced himself which led to a moment of embarrassment. A couple of days later, D. Barton
walked over to the area that the man had been shooting at and discovered one of his sheep had
been shot. The man was shooting at woodchucks and his bullet must have ricocheted off a rock.
C. Anderson doesn’t think that the community is aware of the amount of care and pride the
farmers have and take in the land. He doesn’t feel the farmers are vocal enough about the
amount of time and care they put into their land/property. E. Carpenter said that the CEAs are
what got a lot of people’s hackles up because the farmers have been doing a good job of taking
care of the property and “we know how to take care of wetlands, we know how to take care of
good lands and we have been doing a good job of it” for generations.
Kim used to use part of her land as a pasture but since there is a stream she can’t have the cows
crossing the stream. And they have hills that used to be plowed and planted but are reverting
to wood lands because of negative environmental impacts from run-off. They want to tell us
what to do. It is not for us but for their pleasure. “Their view…. That gets me, their view.
We’re supposed to, it is a nice view now but not with the intent of someone else’s pleasure.”
C. Schutt brought up “View sheds”. C. Anderson stated that it is tough to define. (According to
Merriam-webster.com a viewshed is similar to a water shed, it is “the natural environment
that is visible from one or more viewing points.”)
J. Nicholson asked what the problem was with the view sheds? She can see it from the planning
view point of them being scenic view sheds but where do the farmers see an issue? K.
LaMotte is concerned that those view sheds will limit what the owner can do with the land
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because it might affect the view. Once a space has been designated a beautiful view, what
does that mean to the farmer? D. Barton referenced the Irish Settlement valley. “It is what it
is and it has been that way forever because somebody takes the time to mow it and take care
of it but they are not doing it for it’s beauty. They are doing it because that’s where the
horses graze, that’s where the crop are grown….. I couldn’t afford to keep it looking like that
if I wasn’t getting something back.” E. Carpenter added that there is an economic benefit to
maintaining the property. And if the Town wants to take over the keeping these views
enjoyable, it is going to cost the taxpayers a whole lot of money. We are doing it for
financial gain and everyone else is benefiting from it and we have been doing it forever.
J. Osmeloski pointed out that the Town needs to maintain a tax base and home owners supply
that. But then D. Barton pointed out that several advantageous businesses (the hotel by
North road, route 13 and TC3 entrance, the concrete plant, etc) have been turned away from
the Town, but Poet’s Landing right across from the High School was permitted. According
to K. LaMotte, the school now has to hire a crossing guard. C. Anderson pointed out that it is
in the village and the Town had little to do with that. The issue with industrial growth in the
town was blamed on the increase in big trucks going through Dryden. But there are a huge
number of them (big trucks) already.
The bottom line question is how do we want to define a farm and agriculture?
D. Barton asked about the subsistence farmers in the Town. Do they get counted as well?
D. Barton moved to accept the March 13th minutes as presented. J. Osmeloski seconded the
motion which was unanimously passed.
There being no further business, D. Barton motioned to adjourn at 9:10, J. Osmeloski seconded
the motion. The meeting was adjourned at 9:11 PM.
Respectfully submitted,
Erin A. Bieber
Deputy Town Clerk