State and Regional Policies and Plans

Respon­si­ble Region­al­ism exam­ines region­al and State poli­cies and devel­op­ment plans and estab­lish­es goals to ensure that New Castle’s land use plan­ning aligns with these poli­cies and plans, which are list­ed below. This list is not inclu­sive, how­ev­er it empha­sizes pro­grams and poli­cies that are most rel­e­vant and impact local deci­sion mak­ing to the great­est extent:

• MS4 Stormwa­ter Man­age­ment Pro­gram: The New York State Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Con­ser­va­tion (NYS DEC) iden­ti­fied the Town of New Cas­tle as a Munic­i­pal Sep­a­rate Storm Sew­er Sys­tem (MS4) in accor­dance with the ​“urban­ized area” def­i­n­i­tions of the Cen­sus Bureau. As a MS4, New Cas­tle must imple­ment a pro­gram of six min­i­mum con­trol mea­sures as well as imple­ment the height­ened per­mit con­di­tions for the East of Hud­son Water­shed. The six min­i­mum con­trol mea­sures relate to pub­lic out­reach, edu­ca­tion and involve­ment, illic­it dis­charge detec­tion and elim­i­na­tion, con­struc­tion site runoff con­trol, post-con­struc­tion runoff con­trol and pol­lu­tion prevention/​good house­keep­ing. As an East of Hud­son munic­i­pal­i­ty, New Cas­tle must under­take stormwa­ter retro­fit projects to reduce phos­pho­rus con­tri­bu­tions to local water­bod­ies. In addi­tion, the Town’s edu­ca­tion pro­gram must include phos­pho­rus. For more infor­ma­tion regard­ing this pro­gram vis­it http://​www​.dec​.ny​.gov/​c​h​e​mical… 

• Westch­ester 2025: The most direct region­al influ­ence from a pol­i­cy and plan­ning per­spec­tive is that of Westch­ester Coun­ty. Westch­ester 2025: Plan Togeth­er is Westch­ester County’s long-range land use plan­ning pol­i­cy which includes a tool­box to assist munic­i­pal­i­ties with under­tak­ing local plan­ning analy­ses as well as 15 poli­cies to guide plan­ning in Westch­ester Coun­ty. The County’s poli­cies relate to the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of devel­op­ment cen­ters, enhance­ment of trans­porta­tion cor­ri­dors, trans­porta­tion alter­na­tives, estab­lish­ing inter­con­nect­ed open spaces and recre­ation­al oppor­tu­ni­ties, nur­tur­ing eco­nom­ic cli­mate, pre­serv­ing nat­ur­al resources, sup­port­ing the devel­op­ment and preser­va­tion of per­ma­nent afford­able hous­ing, etc. Like this Com­pre­hen­sive Plan, Westch­ester 2025 is ded­i­cat­ed to sus­tain­able devel­op­ment and the bal­anc­ing of eco­nom­ic and envi­ron­men­tal con­cerns. For more infor­ma­tion regard­ing this pro­gram vis­it http://westchester2025.westche…

• New York City Water­shed Agree­ment: In the ear­ly 1990s, New Cas­tle was one of twelve munic­i­pal­i­ties in Westch­ester Coun­ty that nego­ti­at­ed the pro­tec­tion of land use and devel­op­ment rights with the New York City Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion (DEP), who at that time was attempt­ing to strength­en its water­shed pro­tec­tion reg­u­la­tions. These nego­ti­a­tions came to a close in 1997 with the devel­op­ment of the his­toric Mem­o­ran­dum of Agree­ment to Pro­tect New York City’s Drink­ing Water Sup­ply (MOA). (vis­it http://​www​.dos​.ny​.gov/​w​a​t​ershe…) As out­lined in the MOA New Cas­tle would par­tic­i­pate along­side Westch­ester Coun­ty and nine oth­er Westch­ester munic­i­pal­i­ties with­in the Cro­ton Water­shed [also known as the North­ern Westch­ester Water­shed Com­mit­tee (NWWC)] to imple­ment var­i­ous water­shed pro­tec­tion pro­grams. The NWWC meets on a month­ly basis to dis­cuss pro­gram imple­men­ta­tion in regards to the MOA. Three of the MOA pro­grams direct­ly affect New Cas­tle and include:

• Devel­op­ment of the Com­pre­hen­sive Cro­ton Water­shed Qual­i­ty Pro­tec­tion Plan (the Cro­ton Plan) — The Cro­ton Plan estab­lished a region­al plan­ning effort with the goals of assess­ing water­shed con­di­tions, iden­ti­fy­ing and putting forth strate­gies to reduce non­point source water pol­lu­tion, pre­vent water qual­i­ty degra­da­tion and enhance com­mu­ni­ty char­ac­ter in the Cro­ton Water­shed. Some of the best prac­tices out­lined in this water­shed plan have been incor­po­rat­ed into the New York State Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Con­ser­va­tions Height­ened East of Hud­son Stormwa­ter Permit.

• Waste­water Diver­sion — The MOA gave rise to the 1998 Cro­ton Water­shed Waste­water Diver­sion Study, which as dis­cussed in Chap­ter 2: Har­mo­ny with Nature, iden­ti­fied three waste­water treat­ment plants (WWTPs) and four ​“focus areas” in New Cas­tle that, because of the age of infra­struc­ture and the pop­u­la­tion den­si­ty of the area served, could be sus­cep­ti­ble to becom­ing a source of water qual­i­ty impair­ment. To mit­i­gate the risk of an infra­struc­ture fail­ure, New Cas­tle has been look­ing to imple­ment a project to remove the waste­water from the three WWTPs and one focus area to a treat­ment facil­i­ty out­side of New York City’s drink­ing water­shed. Some of the project fund­ing has been allo­cat­ed from the East of Hud­son Water Qual­i­ty Invest­ment Pro­gram and the Town con­tin­ues to seek the bal­ance of fund­ing from oth­er sources.

• Rules and Reg­u­la­tions to Pro­tect New York City’s Drink­ing Water Sup­ply — The MOA includ­ed the adop­tion of revised ​“Rules and Reg­u­la­tions for the Pro­tec­tion From Con­t­a­m­i­na­tion, Degra­da­tion and Pol­lu­tion of the New York City Water Sup­ply and Its Sources”. These Rules and Reg­u­la­tions pro­vid­ed the New York City Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion with land use over­sight over devel­op­ment projects that occurred with­in their water sup­ply water­shed, regard­less of munic­i­pal land use con­trol. For New Cas­tle, this has cre­at­ed anoth­er lev­el of gov­ern­ment over­sight regard­ing devel­op­ment with­in the Cro­ton Water­shed area of the com­mu­ni­ty. To view these rules and reg­u­la­tions, vis­it http://​www​.nyc​.gov/​h​t​m​l​/​d​ep/pd… 

• Westch­ester Coun­ty Hous­ing Set­tle­ment: In August 2009, Westch­ester Coun­ty entered into a Con­sent Decree in a fed­er­al action cap­tioned Unit­ed States ex rel. ADC v. Westch­ester Coun­ty, 06 Civ. 2860 (DLC). Among oth­er things, the Con­sent Decree required the Coun­ty to ensure the devel­op­ment of at least 750 new afford­able hous­ing units by the end of 2016. New Cas­tle was not a par­ty to the lit­i­ga­tion and was not bound by the terms of the Con­sent Decree. Nev­er­the­less, the Town respond­ed proac­tive­ly by adopt­ing a Mod­el Afford­able Hous­ing Ordi­nance and tak­ing oth­er steps to accel­er­ate the devel­op­ment of afford­able hous­ing units in the com­mu­ni­ty. Between 2009 and 2016, the Town approved 62 units of hous­ing that com­plied with the afford­abil­i­ty require­ments set forth in the Con­sent Decree. 

• NYMTC: The New York Met­ro­pol­i­tan Trans­porta­tion Coun­cil (NYMTC) is the met­ro­pol­i­tan trans­porta­tion plan­ning orga­ni­za­tion for New York City, Long Island and the low­er Hud­son Val­ley. NYMTC pro­vides a col­lab­o­ra­tive plan­ning forum to address trans­porta­tion-relat­ed issues from a region­al per­spec­tive, under­takes stud­ies for trans­porta­tion improve­ments, fore­casts future con­di­tions and needs, pools the resources and exper­tise of its mem­ber agen­cies to plan for trans­porta­tion and devel­op­ment in the region and make deci­sions on fed­er­al trans­porta­tion funds. Cur­rent­ly, NYMTC is devel­op­ing a new long-term strate­gic plan which out­lines NYMTC mem­bers’ vision for the plan­ning area and lays out a frame­work for main­tain­ing and improv­ing the region’s trans­porta­tion sys­tem going for­ward. This Plan has the poten­tial to influ­ence fund­ing avail­able to the Town for trans­porta­tion projects.

• Region­al Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment Coun­cils: In 2010, New York State devel­oped the Region­al Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment Coun­cils to enable bot­tom-up, local­ly stim­u­lat­ed devel­op­ment. It was the per­cep­tion that top-down plan­ning spear­head­ed by the State gov­ern­ment had imposed eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment strate­gies on the var­ied regions of the State, ignor­ing the unique attrib­ut­es and needs of each region and, as a result, weak­en­ing the State’s econ­o­my. Under this pro­gram, New York State is divid­ed into nine regions- each with their own eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment goals spe­cif­ic to that region’s char­ac­ter­is­tics. Through the Con­sol­i­dat­ed Fund­ing Appli­ca­tion (CFA) process, munic­i­pal­i­ties sub­mit requests for fund­ing from var­i­ous State agen­cies for devel­op­ment projects that could advance the region’s eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment agen­da. Westch­ester Coun­ty is among sev­en oth­er coun­ties in the Mid-Hud­son Region­al Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment Coun­cil (MHREDC). In 2011, the MHREDC devel­oped a Five Year Strate­gic Plan which pre­sent­ed fif­teen dis­tinct goals focus­ing large­ly on mak­ing the region the most attrac­tive and sup­port­ive of mar­ket activ­i­ty and the econ­o­my as pos­si­ble, while cre­at­ing desir­able, sus­tain­able well-pay­ing jobs. What began as fif­teen dis­tinct goals in the Strate­gic Plan became four Core Strate­gies and four Sup­port­ing Strate­gies in the region’s 2014 Progress Report, which con­tin­ue to direct plan­ning and fund­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties in the region.

• Water­shed Pro­tec­tion: As dis­cussed in Chap­ter 2: Har­mo­ny with Nature, New Cas­tle is locat­ed with­in four major water­sheds: the Pocantico/​Saw Mill Riv­er Water­shed, the Bronx Riv­er Water­shed, the Long Island Sound Water­shed and the Cro­ton Water­shed. As ear­ly as the 1990’s Westch­ester Coun­ty began to under­take water­shed plan­ning to safe­guard water qual­i­ty for drink­ing water pro­tec­tion, improved recre­ation­al uses, and pro­tec­tion of nat­ur­al resources and bio­di­ver­si­ty. Each of the fol­low­ing water­shed ini­tia­tives involved the Town of New Cas­tle as well as neigh­bor­ing com­mu­ni­ties that shared bound­aries with­in each of the watersheds:

• The Indi­an Brook-Cro­ton Gorge Water­shed Con­ser­va­tion Action Plan - This plan, devel­oped by the Westch­ester Coun­ty Plan­ning Depart­ment, the Towns of Cort­landt, New Cas­tle, Ossin­ing and the Vil­lages of Ossin­ing and Cro­ton-on-Hud­son focused on pro­tect­ing the drink­ing water sup­ply for the Vil­lage of Cro­ton-on-Hud­son and the Town and Vil­lage of Ossin­ing as well as the health of the Cro­ton Riv­er. The plan includ­ed five major objec­tives: pro­tect­ing and restor­ing nat­ur­al resources, imple­ment­ing stormwa­ter man­age­ment prac­tices, pro­mot­ing sus­tain­able devel­op­ment, pro­tect­ing wildlife and edu­cat­ing the pub­lic. The Town of New Cas­tle is rep­re­sent­ed through the Indi­an Brook Cro­ton Gorge Water­shed Committee.

• Cro­ton-to-High­lands Bio­di­ver­si­ty Plan - A small por­tion of the west­ern side of New Cas­tle was includ­ed in the 2004 Cro­ton-to-High­lands Bio­di­ver­si­ty Plan, along with the Towns of York­town, Cort­landt, and Put­nam Val­ley. The Plan inven­to­ried native species and habi­tats and made rec­om­men­da­tions for bal­anc­ing devel­op­ment with biodiversity. 

• The Westch­ester Coun­ty Green­way Com­pact Plan - New Cas­tle is one of 250 com­mu­ni­ties in the Hud­son Riv­er Val­ley Green­way (the Green­way). The Green­way was estab­lished in 1991 ​“to con­tin­ue to advance the State’s com­mit­ment to the preser­va­tion, enhance­ment and devel­op­ment of the world-renowned scenic, nat­ur­al, his­toric, cul­tur­al and recre­ation­al resources of the Hud­son Riv­er Val­ley while con­tin­u­ing to empha­size eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment activ­i­ties and remain­ing con­sis­tent with the tra­di­tion of munic­i­pal home rule.” In 2007, New Cas­tle adopt­ed the Westch­ester Coun­ty Green­way Com­pact Plan, which qual­i­fied the Town for ben­e­fits includ­ing tech­ni­cal and fund­ing assis­tance from the Green­way. The Green­way Com­pact Plan includes rec­om­men­da­tions and strate­gies for devel­op­ment that the Town has agreed to take into con­sid­er­a­tion when mak­ing plan­ning and devel­op­ment deci­sions. This Plan is aligned with the poli­cies pre­sent­ed in the Com­pact Plan.

• East-of-Hud­son Water­shed Cor­po­ra­tion - New Cas­tle is part of the East-of-Hud­son Water­shed Cor­po­ra­tion, a region­al enti­ty estab­lished to meet the height­ened East of Hud­son stormwa­ter require­ments of the MS4 stormwa­ter retro­fit pro­gram. Through this orga­ni­za­tion, munic­i­pal­i­ties in Put­nam, Westch­ester and Dutchess Coun­ty work col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly to address phos­pho­rus reduc­tion requirements.

The char­ac­ter and form of a com­mu­ni­ty is shaped by its Com­pre­hen­sive Plan and the means to which that plan is imple­ment­ed. New Cas­tle and the munic­i­pal­i­ties that share its bor­ders all have vary­ing degrees of devel­op­ment in prox­im­i­ty to these shared polit­i­cal bound­aries. For exam­ple, in some instances, devel­op­ment is sim­i­lar to New Castle’s in that it is low-den­si­ty res­i­den­tial. In oth­er instances, devel­op­ment is as much as two times as dense as that with­in the Town. These sim­i­lar­i­ties and dif­fer­ences should be con­sid­ered in local deci­sion mak­ing to the great­est extent prac­ti­cal to be cog­nizant of the impacts of land use changes on neigh­bor­ing munic­i­pal­i­ties. In addi­tion, and as dis­cussed in oth­er chap­ters of this Plan, sus­tain­able devel­op­ment and the incor­po­ra­tion of renew­able resource use has become a pri­or­i­ty for the region. This, com­bined with the need to update infra­struc­ture sys­tems (e.g. road­ways, sew­ers, water sys­tems), high­lights the impor­tance of pur­su­ing Fed­er­al and State fund­ing in part­ner­ship with our munic­i­pal neighbors.