No Town Official In Cape Vincent Or Other Communities That Goes Along With Art. X Should Be Given The Sacred Responsibility To Establish Zoning For Any Community's Welfare

That's Right!  Any local  govt. official who participates in the Art X process which enables the destruction of long established responsible fundamental zoning principles and the legal precendents that support them that have protected our communities for many decades, does not understand nor deserve the sacred responsibility to zone for their citizens!  Read on to see why participation in Art X has inordinate destructive implications for all long established responsible traditional zoning, not just Cape Vincent.

Since BP may relative soon be in a position to make an application to Art X for their Cape Vincent Wind Farm, for some “light reading” I was once again reviewing the Art X Regulations. You can see them at the link below.

http://www3.dps.ny.gov/W/PSCWeb.nsf/All/143595FA3BE36AEA852579D00068B454?OpenDocument


When BP makes an application for their project there is considerable detailed information they must submit. I was struck by one requirement quoted below in the Land Use section of the regulations.

BP must submit…

“(e) A statement as to whether the municipality has an adopted comprehensive plan and whether the proposed land use is consistent with such comprehensive plan. If the municipality’s comprehensive plan is posted on a website, the exhibit shall contain the address of the internet site where the plan is posted.”


My first thought is this will be amusing as hell to see how BP conjures up lies and propaganda to answer this question.

We have a comprehensive plan that emphasizes the protection of our natural beauty, rural agricultural landscapes, and small town/village atmosphere and has no allowances for any major industrial development no less industrial wind energy.

But upon reflection it struck me…why is this question even in the application? Under the zoning preemption powers scheme of Art X this question is basically irrelevant. The Art X law powers themselves make this question completely pointless. It is more garbage that points up how ridiculous and contrary to long established NYS zoning practices, and court case law Art X really is and how it must run amuck and destroy traditional zoning principles to carry out its political agenda on behalf on its pay by lobby industrial clients.

A comprehensive land use plan according to NYS Town Law, and commonly across the country is a document that carefully defines what is established in your zoning. Zoning carries out the vision of the long term land use comprehensive plan. In fact in NYS any municipality that adopts a comp plan must then make sure their zoning is in accordance with the vision of that plan. One preemptive decision by Art X and it destroys all that long established legal relationship.

You can’t establish a plan that is all about the preservation of the beauty and natural assets of the community, then write zoning that would allow for large invasive industrial uses…like industrial wind energy. It would not legally hold up in court and there is substantial case law that backs this up. So what the hell gives the State the right to do that against what they have currently on the law books in other zoning statutes. Cuomo and the State in their brilliance are essentially preempting themselves and their long standing land use laws and case law!!! Essentially a comp plan like ours is the entire foundation of the whole fundamental zoning idea. We aren’t talking nickel and dime stuff here. Art X is not only running amuck with traditional NYS zoning concepts, but also running amuck of long established case law as well, the minute they preempt zoning that is backed by careful and deliberative comprehensive land planning. Any preemption to establish wind energy takes down the entire comp plan zoning fundamentals and the court decisions that have over time backed it all up.

Art X unfortunately established the power in law for a siting board to preempt local zoning laws the siting board determines are overly burdensome, or not reasonable to developers like BP.

So what is the point of asking BP if their project will comply to any comp plan, if the Art X board can simply override our zoning on behalf of BP, and in doing so completely invalidate our comp plan. If you put up one 400 or 500 ft. industrial wind turbine in CV, not to mention 20, 40,60 or 124 then you are in complete violation of our comp plan since any zoning decision must traditionally, by NYS law, be in compliance with the vision of any community comp plan, and especially when the whole thrust of our CV comp plan would be in direct and absurd contradiction to any industrial wind project.

Once the turbines are allowed the entire effort and premise of our comp plan and it’s community vision, and the zoning that is legally attached to it gets vaporized. At that point there is NO point left in even having a comp plan such as ours or any lasting community vision. What CV becomes is nothing more than a monument to an absurd zoning scam and how Cuomo and the State threw land use planning and zoning on the trash heap on behalf of their well paying industrial developer clients. And by our town participating in this scam they are helping to ensure CV gets thrown on Cuomo's zoning trash heap!

And it doesn’t even take the Art X board actually overriding our zoning. The fact that their preemptive power exists at all destroys tradition long established fundamentals of zoning. Now on the most important issue many of our communities are facing in NNY there isn’t even a point in establishing a comp plan under the Art X zoning scam.

Of course we should not be surprised because the entire BS scheme for wind energy to exist, even before Art X, requires developers to completely trash the traditional fundamentals of zoning. Such was the role of our former planning board and our previous wind conflicted CV govt. BP and Acciona had to have friends in the local zoning business willing to step up and run amuck with zoning on their behalf.

Only now, with Art. X, wind energy has convinced wind puppets like Cuomo and much of the NYS legislature to do the same dirty work for them, only at a higher and more powerful level where the outcome is more certain and the same money is more effective than throwing it at local municipal officials.

If for nothing else, the simple reason of what Art X is doing by running amuck with fundamental long established responsible community planning and zoning practices, we should not be participating in this scheme, or enabling it. The costs are simply too high on a much bigger scale to sit back and appease this absurd scheme.

When our Town officials tinker around with this nonsense as only a local issue to be overcome against the State, I am not sure they fully understand the true implications of what they are doing and appeasing. They are running amuck right along with a badly distorted and run amuck system and enabling it further and willingly giving it validity.

And in my opinion any local public official in our town or any other that willingly buys into and participates in this reckless Art. X scheme that so badly runs amuck with traditional responsible zoning principles and supportive case law, and contradicts other NYS land use laws, should not be given the sacred elected or appointed privilege to participate in any community’s land use defense or the sacred responsibility of establishing community zoning and the health, safety and welfare it should provided its citizens.

And the sad part is many have bought into this entire BS scam because our State legislature and Governor wrapped it all up in a nice tidy law that looks so respectable and legitimate coated in a regulatory paper chase that has been all bought and paid for so local officials will buy into the illusion that the only way they can beat it is by going along with it.

It is the perfect scam!