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Planning for sustainable growth

By Brady Huggett
Posted 12/23/22

SULLIVAN COUNTY — New York State’s Agricultural districts law went into effect in 1971. The idea was to help preserve New York farms, which at the time were facing rising costs …

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Planning for sustainable growth

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This is part three of a three-part series on the effects of the housing boom in Sullivan County, caused by the global pandemic. Parts one and two can be found at www.scdemocratonline.com

SULLIVAN COUNTY — New York State’s Agricultural districts law went into effect in 1971. The idea was to help preserve New York farms, which at the time were facing rising costs associated with farming, land pressure from residential and commercial development, and regulations that constrained their business. These laws created economic and regulatory incentives for farmers. 

Sullivan County’s first agricultural district was put in place not long after, in 1975. So the friction between agriculture and residential interests have long existed in the Western Catskills. Laws at the town level came into existence about a quarter of a century later. Callicoon’s Right to Farm law, for instance, was enacted in 2000, when the town board recognized that “farming is an essential enterprise and important industry” that enhanced the “economic base, natural environment and quality of life” in Callicoon. The law was meant to “maintain and preserve the rural traditions and character of the town” by limiting the circumstances when farming “may be deemed a nuisance.”

Partly, the law was meant to protect farmers from complaints about manure or pesticides odors, or the sounds of machinery at early hours. There are similar laws found in 11 towns around Sullivan County, including Bethel,  Cochecton, Liberty and Fremont, and most were passed well over a decade ago. 

But in 2018 the county’s agricultural board and Cornell Cooperative Extension funded the creation of new roadside signs for the 11 municipalities that have these laws, reminding visitors that the town they were driving through is a “Right to Farm Community.”   

Melinda Meddaugh is the Agricultural and Food Systems Issue leader at Cornell Cooperative Extension Sullivan County (CCESC). Meddaugh says that while tourism to Sullivan County was nothing new in 2018, the agricultural board had become aware that “people are coming here and moving here and not seeing that farmers have certain rights.”

In recent years, there has been “an increase in issues” relating to agriculture, Meddaugh said, as well as an increase in land turnover. To help defray possible tensions, CCESC has hosted continuing education trainings for real estate agents to teach them about farmland and its accompanying necessities, and there are plans to do more. This way, realtors can “promote the land for those who want to farm,” and anyone else looking to buy has their eyes wide open about just who their neighbors are. 

For now, though, the housing market has finally begun to chill. Inflation, rising mortgage interest rates and a decrease in inventory have slowed the pandemic frenzy. For the first half of 2022, new home listings in Sullivan County fell 15 percent from the same period the year before, closed sales sank 19 percent, and the number of homes for sale were down 12 percent. Prices are still rising — the median sale for a home in the second quarter of 2022 was $267,000 — and it’s possible that could also deter buyers.  

Still, there are plans that might keep the growth coming. 

The Catskills once had passenger railway service from New York City. The New York Ontario and Western Railway ran into Sullivan County until the line went bankrupt in 1957. Jim Wilson, who owns the Olympia Hotel and Callicoon Brewery in Callicoon, wanted to bring passenger trains back to the Western Catskills, and teamed up with Irene Nickolai, who owns the Western Hotel in Callicoon, to try and resurrect service to the Upper Delaware River Valley. They were joined by Wes Coates, who has more than 40 years of passenger train experience, in a nonprofit effort to restart train service. The project is called The Catskill Explorer, and aims to connect a passenger train from Port Jervis to Sullivan County, with stops in Narrowsburg, Callicoon and Hancock, using the existing New York and Erie freight lines. 

In some ways, this is a return to the past. 

“About 100 years ago, the Catskills were covered with large hotels, and people came up from the city on the train,” Coates said. “So taking the train to the Catskills is not a new idea.”

Nickolai is a two-time president of the business association in Callicoon and founder of the Callicoon Depot restoration project. She’s another transplant from New York City. She used to sell real estate there, and bought the Western in 2016. It had been for sale for years, and she thought “the center of town being that dark was holding Callicoon back, a little bit.” She revitalized the bar on the main floor, and overhauled the restaurant. 

The Catskill Explorer line would use the existing tracks, and initially provide only summer weekend service, though that could expand to year round. The nonprofit has commissioned a feasibility and ridership study, and is applying for funding from Empire State Development. It will need to win some grants to get started, but the hope is that eventually ridership would pay for itself. 

A train line could make trips to the Upper Delaware easier for weekenders and summer tourists. But it’s possible train service could also simply bring more people to the area full time, continuing the growth that many saw, and disliked, during the pandemic. 

Change often brings anxiety. For the long-time residents of the Western Catskills, the worry is that explosion seen during the pandemic, and any continued growth will change the area from bucolic to something else. While interviewing for this article, several people said in passing, that they hope the Western Catskills don’t “get ruined.” Sullivan County is resurgent, again, because of its gorgeous, wooded mountains; its clean river; and its rolling hills. Too much development, and too many people, could destroy all that.

Nickolai understands the worry. So far she has received “no negative comments” from the general population on the Catskill Explorer plan, but she knows more growth could stir up feelings. 

“It’s such a fine line,” she said, because people have traditionally seen Sullivan County as an escape, yet once they themselves get here, they “want to keep it as is.” 

The beauty of the Western Catskills can make it feel like “a secret garden, and you don’t want people to know about it,” she said. “But development has to happen, it just has to happen sustainably.”

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