Do you live in the Town of Ramapo including the 11 Villages that are within the Town of Ramapo?

Are you concerned about the lack of Comprehensive Planning in the Town of Ramapo?

Do you want the Town Board to update the Comprehensive Plan and look at the totality of the Town and create a town-wide overall strategic plan before working on area specific recommendations? 

. . . Get involved and share your personal concerns and aspirations for comprehensive planning in the Town of Ramapo before it’s too late. 

HISTORY

• July 2018 – The Town Board chose a consulting firm to develop a “Townwide Strategic Plan”
• October 2018 – The Town Board authorized the agreement to work on a Townwide plan.
• November 2018 – With less than one week’s notice the Town posted information about about a meeting for the Northeast section of town. Supervisor Specht promised that there would be similar meetings for all areas of Ramapo.
• January 2019 – The Town presented draft plans for increased density on the Minisceongo Golf Course by up to 12x, along Rt. 202, and the wetlands of the Gracepoint church. The Town consultants again promised more meetings on other areas of Ramapo. Those meetings did not happen.
• February 2019 – The Town started a State Environmental Quality Review (SEQR) process on the Northeast Strategic Plan and Comprehensive Plan Update of the Town-wide Existing Conditions, but such documents do not exist.
• July 2019 – Without any documented plans in hand the Town Board voted that nonexistent plans and unspecified code changes will have negative environmental impacts that must be studied. (that’s like placing the cart before the horse)
• August 2019 – There was a single public hearing for a draft SEQR scoping outline to study plans that do not exist making rational public input impossible.
• December 2020 – The supervisor submitted a final scoping document still on plans that do not exist to the Town Board to approve.
• January 2021 – The Town Board approved the draft of the final scoping plans without any revisions based on substantial public comment.
• February 22, 2021 – The Consultant uploaded a draft of the Town Wide Existing Conditions Document
• March 22, 2021 – The Town has called for a special meeting consultants to update the board.

Details and links below.

Town Hires Consultant up for Total Town Strategic Plan

On July 19, 2018 the Town of Ramapo selected “the LABERGE GROUP team to serve as planning consultant for the
Townwide Strategic Plan” (RESOLUTION NO. 2018-401). On October 10, 2018 the Town passed a resolution to accept the proposal of Laberge that covered the specifics of the services requested for the “Townwide Strategic Plan”  (RESOLUTION NO. 2018-518). The proposal was actually for “research and development of the Northeast Ramapo Strategic Plan, Land Use Regulations, and Supplemental Studies”.

Town Moves Forward on Northeast Strategic Plan

On Friday November 23, 2018 the Town announced the public workshop on Tuesday November 27, 2018. The Town held a single charette meeting on Tuesday, had meetings with developers and agencies and then gave a presentation to the public on Thursday the 29th. The Town held two meetings with a separate Northeast Plan Advisory Committee it formed in private (meetings on 11/28/2018 and 12/19/2018). Then the Town provided one more presentation on January 23, 2019 that it actually made an attempt to publicize. (See Town Powerpoint and resident video).

In the January 23rd meeting video you can see the consultants thanking ROSA for getting the word out but even when we get the word out we need your help to share the message.

These are the only public meetings to date that Town allowed for public input until January 20, 2021 (see below).

Town Starts SEQRA Process before Updates to Comp Plan, any Strategic Plan or any Local Law documents exist

The 2004 Comprehensive Plan was approved in January 2004. The Town amended the 2004 Comprehensive Plan in February 2020 to rezone the Pascack Ridge Site. Overall the Town Comprehensive Plan has not been updated in over 17 years.

On August 19, 2019 the Town held a public hearing on a Draft Scoping Plan for 3 undocumented actions: Amendment to Comprehensive Plan Existing Conditions, Strategic Plan for Northeast Ramapo, and a Rezoning Local Law.

The presentation provided and the transcript of the meeting is buried in the Envision Archive.  After that meeting there is no mention of any activities almost a year and a half until the afternoon of December 29, 2020 when the agenda for a special morning meeting of December 30th mentions the plan to approve a Final Scoping Document. Faced with last minute public knowledge and opposition the Town agreed to postpone their plan to approve the document until January 20, 2021 when they gave the public time to provide feedback that they promptly ignored in their immediate vote to approve the Final Scoping document.

Attend Town Board Meetings to Get Updates on What’s Going On

On January 20th the Town confirmed they are not forming a planning committee to work on updates to the Town Comprehensive Plan. The supervisor promised to provide updates at every Town Board meeting and answer questions submitted in writing 2 days in advance of the Town Board meetings. It appears that only the Supervisor, Mona Montal and Councilman Weissmandl are working with the consultants on these efforts.

The Town has not responded to the bulk of the questions submitted by ROSA 4 Rockland, the professional planner hired by ROSA 4 Rockland, or ROSA volunteers as promised. The Town posted on their Documents Page a draft of the Town Wide Existing Conditions on February 22, 2021. At the last meeting of March 10th Supervisor Specht when asked why there were no answers in the meeting or in the website FAW section, he explained that they are behind, they won’t commit to when they will answer and that they will not respond to any recommendations, requests, or comments – only factual questions.

Videos of Town Board Meetings

• December 30, 2020
• January 20, 2021
• January 27, 2021 – waiting on FOIL request
• February 10, 2021 – waiting on FOIL request
• February 24, 2021 – waiting on FOIL request

**SPECIAL MEETING OF MARCH 22, 2021 7PM**

At the Town Board meeting of March 10th, it was announced that the Town’s planning consultant (now MJ Engineering and not Laberge) will do a presentation to the Town Board at the Special Meeting scheduled for March 22nd at 7:00 PM on Zoom.

Please plan to attend the meeting of March 22, 2021 to see/hear the latest update for yourseld. See zoom instructions here.

Submit Comments to the Town 

You can submit comments to the supervisor – SpechtM@ramapo-ny.gov – or the Town Clerk – OsherovitzS@ramapo-ny.gov. You can try using the Comment form on the website. We cannot speak to the the efficacy of that form.

ROSA 4 Rockland Statement

ROSA 4 Rockland volunteers, followers and supporters are not anti development,  we are pro-sustainability.  Universally residents from every part of the Town are concerned about development that does not follow established zoning patterns and substantial changes in zoning patterns without substantial planning studies. We are long overdue for comprehensive planning.

Updates to Comprehensive Plans are recommended to happen every 5-7 years. It has been 17 years (!) since the Town of Ramapo passed the 2004 Comprehensive Plan.  It has been overdue for an update for 10+ years. In 2017, Supervisor Specht ran on an election platform that promised a Comprehensive Plan update. Since then, the supervisor has avoided normal comprehensive planning processes and instead has taken action to increase development in Northeast Ramapo to cater to the golf course developer and commercial developers who have interests in this area.

The Town Board has moved forward on a piecemeal planning effort that is developer centric. Without analysis of the past plan or existing conditions the Town kicked off a process in 2018 designed to target one of the lowest density, most environmentally sensitive area of Ramapo for significantly higher density housing including multi family housing.

ROSA is opposed to the Town Board proceeding with the current segmented process that is being worked on without doing the necessary environmental studies first and without adequate involvement of all the residents of Ramapo. We invite all residents of the unincorporated areas in the northern portions of Ramapo, and in the adjoining villages to pay attention to the Town of Ramapo’s Northeast Strategic Plan efforts – archived documents here.

Please donate to support the hiring of professionals to advocate for residents in these processes.

Please support ROSA’s efforts to hire planners and attorney’s to represent existing residents concerned about how they are moving forward with planning please DONATE here.

Directed donations specific to the Northeast Strategic Plan can be made by selecting it from the dropdown.  See screenshot.

Please consider making a monthly donation for the duration of the Town’s planning cycle.

Join the ROSA mailing list here if you want to be kept in the loop of important upcoming Town meetings and hearings.