Why Woodbury needs one village now

Why Woodbury needs one village now


By Colleen Campbell

I believe that by voting for the Village of Woodbury, you are providing the best defense against the inevitable changes that will occur.

As a former councilwoman, I strongly supported the five local laws recently re-enacted. This was the first step toward maintaining our current style of housing. The second step is to incorporate as a single village. By voting yes for the current incorporation, you minimize the impact of future zoning and boundary changes to the territory we live in.

A perfect example is Kiryas Joel. It's own incorporation allowed its residents the ability to build as they chose without complying with Monroe's zoning. They built according to their own standards. KJ is up front about its need for high-density housing.

It needs additional lands to continue to grow, so it purchased Ace Farms. It is very likely that KJ will attempt to annex those lands into the existing village. If it can't, it could create another village in Woodbury. I believe if KJ created a village in Woodbury, you would quickly see other villages popping up throughout Woodbury.

Highland Mills, close to KJ "2," would most likely choose to create its own village to prevent further encroachment. Central Valley residents may then decide they need to create their own village to protect their interests. Not only would we now have three to four villages throughout Woodbury, but also only certain villages would contain the tax ratables. Most of the business district would be centralized in the Village of Central Valley, where most of the money would be. How would this impact the taxes of the other newly formed villages? What would they have for revenue?

The best way to prevent this dissection is to vote yes for the current village proposal Aug. 10. This village would prevent any future villages from popping up, because you cannot create a new village within an existing village. This proposal would allow all the revenue to continue to be shared equally by all. It would be the closest scenario to maintaining what we currently have.

While it is truly unfortunate that we are faced with this dilemma, faced with it we are. To sit back and do nothing is to allow forces beyond our control to control us. Working out the details of how a single village would operate within the Town of Woodbury is a heck of a lot easier than three to four villages vying for their piece of the pie.

Oh, and let's not forget that the village with the most inhabitants would control the vote. Just look at Monroe. We need to be proactive and seize our own destiny. We can do that by voting yes for the village incorporation Aug. 10.

Colleen Campbell of Central Valley is a former Woodbury councilwoman.