We have heard the Marbletown Town Board's rationale for the Hamlet Overlay District: Rezone the hamlets to allow more housing. That will attract a nonprofit developer like RUPCO. A RUPCO project then justifies State funding for a water district, and the water district will make the new housing possible.

Unfortunately, the reasoning is circular: The housing cannot be built without water, and the water cannot be funded until the housing exists. Nothing in the sequence can start, because a nonprofit cannot finance a project with no assured water supply, and the State does not fund infrastructure for a project that has not been designed.

The premise is also mistaken: The rezoning is not what unlocks State money; Pro-Housing Community certification is, and certification does not require this law or the dramatic changes it would enable. A town may be certified by passing a resolution and submitting its zoning code, map and permitting data. Yet the State's dashboard shows that Marbletown has filed only a letter of intent. The step that opens access to funding for a water district is available now, has not been taken, and does not require the zoning overlay.

The consequences of the proposed law: Duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes would need only a permit from the Code Enforcement Officer, without Planning Board review, whether or not a water district is ever created. Stranger still, the law permits multiplex buildings of five to eight units only in Stone Ridge, which has no public water, and prohibits them in High Falls, which does. If the district never materializes, the Town will have permitted market-rate housing that the aquifer cannot supply, while eliminating the review that would have prevented such a mistake.

I support affordable housing in Marbletown that is compatible with its historic character and sustainable in its access to water and transportation. We should all ask the Board to complete Pro-Housing certification, now; pursue the engineering and secure funding for a water district, now; and postpone any rezoning until the impacts of the proposed changes have been fully studied and understood.

Gary Tinterow

Stone Ridge