Environmental Legislation

The TDP acknowl­edged that New Cas­tle was already large­ly devel­oped and stat­ed that many of the major deci­sions affect­ing the Town’s nat­ur­al resources had already been made. The poli­cies set forth in the TDP regard­ing the Town’s envi­ron­men­tal fea­tures had large­ly to do with the con­ser­va­tion of unde­vel­oped land and the pro­tec­tion of sen­si­tive resources and envi­ron­men­tal fea­tures that remained untouched at the time. Since the writ­ing of the TDP, many revi­sions were made to the Town Code for the pur­pose of envi­ron­men­tal protection:

• Chap­ter 108: Steep Slope Pro­tec­tion was added to the code in 1992 to safe­guard the Town’s sen­si­tive ter­rain and veg­e­ta­tion, as well as to pre­vent flood­ing and main­tain impor­tant scenic views and vistas. 
• Chap­ter 108A: Stormwa­ter Man­age­ment and Ero­sion and Sed­i­ment Con­trol (2007) and Chap­ter 108B: Ille­gal Dis­charges and Illic­it Con­nec­tions (2007) were includ­ed to bet­ter man­age stormwa­ter runoff, pre­vent sur­face ero­sion, and mit­i­gate pol­lu­tion of groundwater. 
• Chap­ter 70: Flood Dam­age Pre­ven­tion was adopt­ed in 2007 to pro­tect flood­plains and pre­vent prop­er­ty dam­age dur­ing flood­ing events. 
• The Town’s wet­lands pro­tec­tion law (1979) was repealed in 1990 and replaced by the cur­rent Chap­ter 137: Wet­lands, which strict­ly reg­u­lates devel­op­ment with­in 100 feet of any wet­land areas. 
• In 2002, the Town estab­lished an Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Over­lay dis­trict which expand­ed the width of the wet­land buffer estab­lished in Chap­ter 137 (from 100 feet to 150 feet) on lands locat­ed in the east­ern and west­ern ends of the Town.