Town urged to consider climate change

Rhinebeck town officials are being urged to consider climate change when updating the 11-year-old comprehensive plan.

Town officials are being urged to update the 11- yearold comprehensive plan to have climate change expectations come into alignment with current science and develop realistic projects that can be accomplished.

The land use planning document was reviewed during a video conference presentation last week, with intern David Chernack reviewing a report prepared for the town and village Joint Environmental Committee.

“The town’s plan ... set forth hundreds of specific tasks that were to be undertaken either by citizen volunteer groups or committees that were called for the formation of in the plan or they were to be taken care of by the Conservation Advisory Committee,” he said.

He added, “2009 was not a great time to be calling for a lot of infrastructural or capital-heavy projects. ... This plan, which was very, very ambitious and had a ton of great ideas... and that reflects very well on the people that wrote it. But it just had the very severe misfortune of being published right at the tail end of 2009, the height of the Great Recession.”

Chernack noted that over the past decade the understanding of how climate change impact communities has demonstrated where the town needs to focus attention when revising the comprehensive plan.

“A lot of unique research was done to define and document the critical habitats, unique species, and critical ecological areas of Rhinebeck,” he said. “The plan says essentially nothing about how the climate might affect agriculture (and) natural resources.”

Among recommendations in the report are:

• Investing heavily in fast- charging station for electric vehicles.

• Establish a town and village inventory of natural resources that would be impacted by climate change.

• Create a pedestrian walkway between the village and the Rhinecliff residential hamlet.

• Designate Vanderburgh Cove as a critical environment area.

Supervisor Elizabeth Spinzia said the report will provide the basis for updating the comprehensive plan but there won’t be overall revisions to the documents.

“We have no plans to rewrite the comprehensive plan,” she said. “What we have plans to do is look at what it tells us to do and (develop) projects.”