CLC has produced a brochure about Conservation Advisory Councils.
Community Assistance News
Harlem Valley Rail Trail funding in jeopardy
Harlem Valley Rail Trail
Act this week to support local trail projects such as the Harlem Valley Rail Trail. This week, Congress is having a critical debate about the future of trails, biking, and walking. You can shape the outcome.
Contact Representative Gibson (202.225.5614 or 518.610.8133) and ask him to vote against the transportation bill, H.R. 7. The proposed legislation eliminates funding for future trail projects, which could hinder the expansion of the Harlem Valley Rail Trail and the development of other county trail projects. The bill also cuts funding for the Transportation Enhancements and Safe Routes to School programs, rail and canal trails around the country, and state DOT bicycle pedestrian coordinators.
Contact Senators Schumer (518.431.4070) and Gillibrand (212.688.6262) and ask them to support the Cardin-Cochran and the Klobuchar amendments to MAP-21. These amendments restore dedicated funding for the Recreational Trails program and ensure local input to Transportation Enhancements and Safe Routes to School projects.
Volunteers Build Trail
Volunteers work on a new trail that connects Harrier Hill Park with Greenport Conservation Area. The event was cosponsored with Scenic Hudson, Stockport Trails Committee, and CLC. Looks like fun? Sign up for the next one.
Conservation Advisory Council Roundtable
Conservation advocates from 10 Columbia County towns and the City of Hudson gathered at the Churchtown Firehouse on October 13, 2011 to hold the county’s first Conservation Advisory Council Roundtable (notes). As part of it’s Community Assistance Program, CLC convened the roundtable in response to interest from municipal volunteers and citizens who attended CLC’s land use training workshop, Conservation Advisory Councils: How They Can Help Your Town Balance Development and Conservation. CONTINUE READING
Whole Community Planning
by Peter Paden
Originally published on October 7, 2011 in the Register-Star
I often have the opportunity in this column to note that Columbia County is a place with truly exceptional natural assets: several hundred thousand acres of contiguous forests, more than a hundred thousand acres of excellent farmland, hundreds of streams and wetlands, a rich and varied array of plant and animal wildlife and, of course, breathtaking scenic beauty just about everywhere you look.
It is not, however, a remote wilderness. Some 60,000 people reside here. We need places to live, to shop and to do business, and we need infrastructure to provide energy, communications and transportation.
The big question is whether we can provide these essential features of community life and still preserve the qualities that make Columbia County such a special place, or whether, as has happened in so many other parts of the Hudson Valley, the inevitable march of “progress” will lead to the disappearance of the rich natural world and our universally cherished “rural character.” CONTINUE READING
Hudson North Bay Recreation and Natural Area
On August 9, 2011, CLC published a proposal to transform the site of the former City of Hudson landfill and surrounding open space into a public recreation and natural area within walking distance of downtown Hudson. The plan envisions a trail network that would link the City with an expansive tract of open space and natural habitat, stretching from the City’s Charles Williams Park, through the 714-acre Greenport Conservation Area and northward on to Harrier Hill Park. Interpretive programs would educate visitors about the varied ecosystems as well as the history of shoreline settlement. The site would be a permanent outdoor classroom and natural laboratory for research and habitat management.
Dutchess Rail Trail
Here is another great edition of Plan On It, the Dutchess County Planning Federation e-newsletter, with an interesting article on the Dutchess Rail Trail, a county-community collaboration that originated in the 1980′s. Columbia County is now positioned to move forward on at least two great trail corridors like this one.
Read the PDF.