Windham is nearing the final stage of implementing its first zoning law, a proposal in the works since 2022 that would replace piecemeal regulations and split the town into five districts with separate rules governing what kinds of development can happen where.
The plan would fold land-use laws such as site plan, setback, and sign rules into one code that would establish minimum lot sizes and density limits, allow some accessory dwelling units, and create a separate framework for the resort area. It doesn’t directly regulate short-term rentals, a hot-button issue in many Catskills towns.
Windham’s proposal has its roots in the 2022 Comprehensive Plan, which recommended an independent zoning commission. With the help of a state Smart Growth Zoning Grant, officials spent almost three years studying land-use patterns before submitting the draft to the Town Board late last year.
“This process to get to where we are now has been a three year process,” Town Supervisor Tom Hoyt said.
“The comprehensive plan is sort of the vision document that says, this is who we want to be as a community,” said Helen Budrock, the Delaware Engineering consultant who drafted most of the proposed law while working with a Town Board-appointed zoning commission over roughly three years. “These are our goals. These are our objectives. This is what we want to be when we grow up. And any land use regulations have to be consistent with that vision.”
The hearing is set for 6 p.m. Thursday, April 30, at Town Hall in Hensonville. The Overlook will simulcast it on social media.
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The town would be divided into Rural Residential, Hamlet, Planned Residential, Business, and Resort districts. The proposal aims to preserve Windham’s low-density residential character in outlying areas, foster moderate residential and commercial growth in hamlet centers, continue planned residential development, support business districts, and create a structure under which the Windham Mountain Club could expand.
While Windham’s laws regulate how something can be built, they don’t always cover what’s built or how intense it can be, Budrock said.
“The only land use tool that you can really use to regulate the type and the intensity of development is zoning,” she said. “There’s nothing currently on the books in Windham that separates commercial and residential uses and nothing that regulates density.”
For most residents, the law would matter more for future development than for homes and businesses, Hoyt said. He said earlier efforts to adopt zoning stalled more than two decades ago because residents resisted the idea of the town telling them what they could do with their property.
“At that time zoning was a four letter word. ‘Don’t tell me what I can and cannot do on my property.’”
Hoyt said attitudes have since shifted as more people have come to want clearer rules for how the town develops.
“It’s not going to affect the average homeowner at all,” he said. “It’s going to put guidelines on for people that are going to do projects.”
Hoyt said the Town Board made three main changes to the commission draft: It reduced the minimum rural lot size to three acres from five, removed short-term rental language, and dropped a proposed flood hazard overlay because state rules already govern how close development can be to waterways.
Lots and buildings that don’t conform to new standards would in most cases be grandfathered. Undersized lots, for example, would be deemed to meet minimum size requirements, though they wouldn’t be allowed to be further subdivided.
In the Rural Residential district, the minimum lot size would be three acres without central water or sewer. The Hamlet district would have a minimum of two acres without central water or sewer and a half-acre with them. The Business district would have a minimum of one acre without central water or sewer and a quarter-acre with them.
The draft allows accessory dwelling units, or ADUs, in the Hamlet, Rural Residential, and Business districts for a principal single- or two-family home. That rule aims to let residents age in place, expand affordable housing, and make more efficient use of the town’s housing stock.
“The concept behind the ADUs is a way to address the affordable housing crisis,” Budrock said.
Another reason to spell out ADUs is that uses not explicitly listed in zoning are often presumed to be prohibited.
The proposed Resort District, created to cover lands associated with the ski resort, seeks to maintain the resort and allow reasonable future expansion. Any ski resort would be treated as a Planned Resort Development, with commercial recreation remaining the principal use and other commercial or residential uses permitted within that structure.
That part of the proposal was among the trickiest to navigate because it unfolded alongside an ownership change and planning discussions around Windham Mountain, Budrock said.
It’s “another tool in the toolbox to make sure whatever is done in that resort area stays within the character of the community,” Hoyt said.
For all the technical detail packed into the draft, Hoyt and Budrock said the basic purpose is straightforward: To shape future growth without upending the town.
“Everyone should know that this zoning proposal is not over-restrictive,” Hoyt said. “Landowners should be good neighbors.”
Noah Eckstein is the editor-in-chief of The Overlook. Send correspondence to noah@theoverlooknews.com.