Purpose and intent.
A. Purpose. Generally, the purpose of incentive zoning is to provide a means to protect open space, historic resources, and working agricultural lands, and provide for additional community benefits and amenities to the Town in exchange for certain incentives to property owners and prospective developers of projects within designated areas of the Town. Incentive zoning is meant to encourage the long-term conservation and preservation of high-quality farmland, natural and cultural resources, and open space in Henrietta, particularly in the mostly rural southern half of the Town. Incentives are also intended to encourage economic revitalization and provision of essential services to neighborhoods throughout the community. The following incentive categories are established under this article and available in exchange for specific community amenities as identified, herein. These include:
(1) The open space incentive category. The purpose of the open space Incentive Category is to encourage future residential subdivision in the Rural Residential District to be creatively designed so that new homes are located in the landscape in a way that protects open space, valuable resources, and the rural character of Henrietta.
(2) The commercial revitalization incentive category. The Commercial Revitalization Incentive Category encourages the redevelopment of formerly developed commercial parcels to help revitalize business areas and bring properties back on local tax rolls. The purpose is to encourage reuse, redevelopment, and the revitalization of vacant, dormant, and especially dilapidated commercial buildings in the Town.
(3) The neighborhood upgrade incentive category. The Neighborhood Upgrade Incentive Category encourages upgrades to infrastructure where needed in adjacent residential neighborhoods when being developed anyway as part of an applicant's development. This may include extension of utilities and public services, referred to as "drag-along infrastructure." The purpose is to improve visual and functional transition between new nonresidential development and adjacent residential neighborhoods.
(4) The historic properties incentive category. The purpose of the Historic Properties Incentive Category is to encourage the reuse, maintenance and preservation of cultural resources in the community such as historic buildings, structures and sites, including archeologically sensitive locations. This includes cultural resources in the hamlets of East Henrietta and West Henrietta.
B. Legislative intent. Preservation of open space, agriculture, and cultural resources as well as encouragement of economic revitalization, is a benefit to the public. The intent of incentive zoning is to offer incentives to developers to encourage the preparation of project plans in a manner that would provide greater community benefit to the Town and environment although it might not be the most cost-efficient approach for the developer. The Town Board finds that establishing incentive zoning provides benefits to both the developer and Town residents by encouraging the following:
(1) Preserving open space and our agricultural heritage that are two of the most important goals identified by Town residents in surveys conducted as part of the Town's Comprehensive Land Use Planning process. Encouraging developers to preserve large portions of otherwise buildable land, especially in the Rural Residential Zoning District, helps achieve those goals.
(2) Expanding parkland to provide more recreational opportunities for residents. The Town has limited parklands and interconnecting trails and land is costly to obtain so if quality parkland can be acquired through use of incentives, doing so provides significant public benefit to the Town. It is important that the Town Board consider the location of potential parkland, relative to other Town parks, as well as the nature and characteristics of the land itself. Obtaining land that has little use as a park does not provide a substantial community benefit because it also takes that land off the tax rolls.
(3) Reusing long dormant and vacant buildings may increase the cost of a development project over building new structures on new sites, but it has significant community benefit in that it removes what is often an eyesore from the Town's perspective, and improves the Town's tax rolls. It may also preserve the undeveloped greenfield site and open space that might have otherwise been developed.
(4) Encouraging development projects to extend sidewalks, cycling amenities, and pedestrian trails beyond the immediate project area provides an important community benefit. As many of the roads in Henrietta were built without consideration for cyclists and pedestrians, it becomes expensive for the Town to add those amenities later. The Town, as part of its active transportation plan and consistent with complete street policies, encourages all new developments to have sufficient sidewalks and cycling lanes or trails as part of their development and to extend those sidewalks and trails into the surrounding neighborhoods where these amenities do not exist. These extensions would be a significant community benefit and are worth incentivizing in order to create connected networks of pedestrian trails and facilities.
(5) Bringing public utilities to older neighborhoods and homes that do not currently have access to certain utilities and for which it would be too costly to provide through a municipal bond creates substantial benefit to underserved areas. This is sometimes referred to as "drag along infrastructure." This is especially important where neighboring homes do not currently have access to public water. Access to public water for the few remaining houses in Town not served by public water is a significant community benefit and will also benefit local farming and promote sustainable agriculture.
(6) Similarly, as development increases, permeable surfaces decrease which has the potential to limit where septic systems and leach fields can be built. As such, as many older homes, especially those that were once farmhouses, are now surrounded by large neighborhoods, it makes it difficult for them to be able to repair or replace their septic systems. The opportunity to connect to available public sanitary sewers is a benefit to the community. When considering this incentive, the Town Board will need to determine whether the new infrastructure provides benefit to homes outside of a new development, and whether that infrastructure is an important public benefit.
(7) Realizing long-term benefits of implementing incentive zoning through use of conservation easements that include:
(a) A beneficial and permanent way to preserve private lands of value to the community without the need to acquire such property;
(b) Possible income tax and estate tax benefits for landowners; and/or
(c) A relatively inexpensive way to achieve community open space, farmland protection, provision of parks and recreation opportunities, and hazard mitigation, such as from flooding.
Incentive zones.
The following incentive zones are hereby established in the Town.
A. Rural Residential Incentive Zone. The Rural Residential Incentive Zone is coterminous with the Rural Residential Zoning District as designated on the Official Zoning Map of the Town of Henrietta. See
§ 295-34.11A for more detailed information.
B. Commercial Revitalization Incentive Zone. The Commercial Revitalization Incentive Zone is coterminous with all Commercial B-1 or B-2 zoning districts as designated on the Official Zoning Map of the Town of Henrietta. See
§ 295-34.11B for detailed information.
C. Neighborhood Upgrade Incentive Zone. The Neighborhood Upgrade Incentive Zone is Town-wide and thus applies to all zoning districts. See
§ 295-34.11C for detailed information.
D. Historic Properties Incentive Zone. The Historic Properties Incentive Zone is Town-wide and thus applies to all zoning districts. See
§ 295-34.11D for detailed information.
E. Waterfront Revitalization Incentive Zone. The Waterfront Revitalization Incentive Zone is coterminous with the Waterfront Revitalization Area as defined in the Town’s adopted Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan. See
§ 295-34.11E for detailed information.
