Kingston CAC discusses new planning website, wetlands mapping and early review for landscape plans

Council members and staff walked through the City of Kingston’s new planning portal and discussed how the Conservation Advisory Council can increase early input on landscape plans and native-planting practices.

Council staff and members said the planning department’s new project website makes project materials and public comments easier to find and recommended the council regularly review that portal to catch landscaping plans before projects are finalized. A council member pointed to a recent example — Bluestone Court — where Tanya (a zoning task‑force member) had posted repeated public comments citing form‑based code concerns and a lack of usable open space in the applicant’s materials.

The discussion covered roles and limits: the council is advisory under New York State’s municipal framework, not a permitting body, and members noted the trade-off between asking to be a formal conservation board (which would require a larger time commitment and reviewing every development) versus pursuing targeted, early notification of projects that raise environmental concerns. Staff said planning staff already circulate projects to internal departments (engineering, DPW, fire, police); council members asked to be added to that notice list for selected project types.

Wetlands and vernal pools: council member Brandon Moss presented an updated wetlands map that overlays National Wetlands Inventory layers, DEC informational wetlands and mapped ponds, and pointed out city-owned parcels intersecting those layers. He described the DEC jurisdictional-determination process and a practical constraint: the DEC has up to 90 days to respond to a jurisdictional determination request, and if they do not respond the applicant may be able to proceed (with consequences for five years). The council discussed gaps in publicly available mapping and the value of crowd-sourced reporting: several members supported a simple public form linked from the council’s web page where residents could flag possible vernal pools or wetlands for follow-up and potential field verification.

Policy and implementation ideas raised: - Create or expand an online resource listing native-plant species and plant-source suppliers for the Hudson Valley that the planning department can link to when applicants must choose plantings for stormwater or landscaping plans. - Request that planning staff send the council early notices for projects with certain triggers (wetland buffers, large landscaping changes, major site grading), rather than waiting until formal hearings. - Use the council’s natural resources inventory (NRI) and the new portal to assemble a targeted parcel list for outreach or for suggesting pre-submission jurisdictional determinations when mapping layers overlap city parcels.

Next steps: members volunteered to monitor the planning portal, to draft a short comment on Bluestone Court’s open-space/landscape submission for the next planning board cycle, and to develop a small public reporting mechanism for suspected vernal pools that could be field-checked by volunteers or staff. Staff agreed to share login instructions and the portal URL with council members and to follow up on whether the council can be added to departmental routing for selected project types.