Deputy Mayor Sally Rhoads agreed that Margolis had a valid concern and had “been before the Village Board to discuss his concern, but that is a separate issue from what we’re discussing.”
KT Tobin, a village resident, gave her thumbs-up to the project and said that “Floyd is a local developer, someone we can trust, whose kids live in this district, who has New Paltz’s best interests at heart, and I lend my support to this annexation.”
There was some discussion among Town Board members as to whether or not the village had agreed to give them one-half of whatever recreation fees Kniffen might have to pay, if and when he were to develop that parcel to the town.
“Part of annexation hinges on public benefits,” said town Councilman Jeff Logan. “I don’t know if we ever said one-half of the potential recreation fees should go to the town. But I know we were looking for some sort of condition for the annexation that would ensure a monetary sum be given to the Moriello Pool and the Millbrook Preserve — the two closest parks bordering Kniffen’s property — if recreation fees were to be collected down the line from a development there.”
“We can’t require this as a condition to the annexation, but the Village Board can voluntarily agree to it,” clarified Supervisor Hokanson.
The Village Board, led by Rhoads, moved to make a resolution that 50 percent of the recreation fees collected from that property at whatever date would be dedicated to the Moriello Pool or the Millbrook Preserve at a proportion that is undetermined.
The Village Board voted unanimously in favor of that.
Rec fees still a lingering issue
Councilwoman Brown tried to start a discussion about how the village goes about collecting rec fees and wanted to be certain that those fees are actually collected. Right now, the village is supposed to charge $3,000 per unit to a developer when they build. Brown said that there is no Planning Board minutes of a discussion to “waive Woodland Pond’s recreation fees.”
Rhoads said that it “wasn’t germane to the conversation.”
Brown countered that the two boards rarely get together to have these types of discussions. She was supported by village Trustee Ariana Basco, but in the end the conversation wrapped up with the approval of Kniffen’s annexation to the village by the Town Board. ++
