by David Flint
An informational meeting was held at the Stephentown Fire Hall on Thursday, February 27, regarding the possibility of developing a multi-use recreational trail through New Lebanon and Stephentown, potentially going all the way to Bennington. Because the trail as proposed would roughly follow the route of the Corkscrew Division of the old Rutland Railroad, it has been tentatively dubbed the Corkscrew Rail Trail. [private]A group of local residents, including Bev and Rik McClave, Kevin Carpenter, Art Karis, Bill Jennings, Millie Smith, Jennifer Austin and Jim Bonesteel, has been meeting in past months to discuss the project. They enlisted the aid of the Rensselaer Land Trust, the Rensselaer Plateau Alliance and the Hudson River Valley Greenway to present the idea to the community. Fifty-six people signed in at the meeting, but by some estimates the number attending was closer to 75.
Jim Bonesteel led off with an introduction and was immediately challenged as to whether he owned land along the proposed route. Bonesteel said he did not. He added that the route has not been determined yet and landowners will be in control of that. He emphasized that use of residents’ land is strictly voluntary and no one would be pressuring land owners to cooperate. “If there is a landowner along the route that does not want a trail going through their land, they won’t have a trail going through their land,” he said. “It’s up to them…The trail will have to go someplace else or it will have to stop and start again somewhere. We’re not going to tell a landowner they have to have a trail on their land if they don’t want it.”
Fear Not, Snowmobilers
Bonesteel said his group was aware that the Stephentown Trailriders snowmobile club already had an agreement with some landowners along the rail bed to use their land, and he recognized that some might fear they could lose that privilege. He recalled that after the Ashuwillticook Rail Trail in Massachusetts was paved the snowmobilers were blocked from using it. Bonesteel assured them that his committee is committed to recognizing that the snowmobilers’ get precedence here and no one has any desire to take the trail away from them. He noted that there are trail situations elsewhere in New York where snowmobilers are working cooperatively with other trail users and all use the same trail amicably.
Beth Campachiaro of the Hudson River Valley Greenway explained that the Greenway’s role was to assist communities with planning, to promote a community driven voluntary process for establishing trails and to provide guidance in developing them. The Greenway can also help in applying for grant money, and designation of a trail as part of the Greenway Trail System would be important for that. She listed a number of benefits of having a recreational trail in the community including protecting open space and providing corridors for wildlife, providing an opportunity to experience the outdoors and nature, preserving a community’s historic heritage, promoting stewardship of natural and historic resources, health benefits and economic benefits such as boosting tourism and having more money spent in the community for food, fuel, lodging, equipment and souvenirs.
Greenway representative Scott Keller noted that the Greenway organization has no regulatory authority. “We don’t get to come in and say you must work with us. If you don’t want it, it’s not coming to your property,” he said, adding that in every community where a trail has been proposed they hear the same valid concerns from property owners and they try to work out solutions. Someone objected that when a trail was put in near Chatham back in the 1970s, people there did in fact unwillingly have easements placed on their land. Keller responded, “We’re not in the 70s anymore. We’re a little more enlightened.”
Keller said that there are about 1,000 miles of rail trails in the State of New York, successful and bringing in money to communities. The cost of developing a trail is much less, he said, if an existing rail bed is used. It could be $100,000 to $300,000 per mile, but grants are available and economic benefits offset the cost. Starting a new trail could run up to two million per mile.
If snowmobiles are permitted there would have to be separate lanes separating them from cross country skiers and hikers. The Champlain Canalway trail, he said, is an example where snowmobilers and cross country skiers use the same trail.
Regarding vandalism and privacy, Keller said that studies have shown that crime actually decreases around the trails, possibly because of more people and “more eyes on the trail.”
Keller acknowledged that liability is always a concern, but he said that New York’s General Obligations Law provides considerable protection to landowners who open up their land for recreational use. Courts have ruled that the law applies if the land is suitable for the recreational use and the landowner does not maliciously fail to guard against a known hazard.
Discussion Groups
Following the introductory remarks, the people attending were split up into smaller groups for discussion of benefits and concerns. Each group then reported back on the gist of their discussion. Concerns included cost of development and maintenance, who would pay, property issues, trust, infringement on hunting, fishing, trapping and logging, who would be in charge and the potential for controversy and disruption in the community.
The benefits that people saw included some help to the economy, a safe, flat trail for recreational use, a way to connect communities, an attractive amenity growing the stature of the community, opportunity for physical exercise and contact with nature and preservation of ecology and historical heritage.
Objections
Most of those who appeared to be adamantly opposed to the proposal left the meeting before it broke up into small groups. Among those were John and Phyllis DeFreest. The DeFreests own property that includes a stretch of the rail bed off of West Road. The rail bed is in fact the DeFreest’s driveway. John felt that there should have been a straightforward discussion of the proposal in the open forum of the entire group at the meeting. Splitting the meeting up into small groups he thought was an attempt to marginalize the opposition. But beyond that, the DeFreests thought that the landowners, the people directly affected, should have been contacted first to get their input before the plan was presented to the community in a public meeting.
John says he was insulted that one person at the meeting, who doesn’t own property on the rail bed, asked why he did not want to share his property. Since the DeFreests head up the Stephentown Veterans organization and since the DeFreest family was instrumental in helping to revitalize the stalled Stephentown Library expansion project, he felt it hardly proper to imply that his family is not community minded. The DeFreests have, in fact, worked out an agreement with the Stephentown Trailriders that permits snowmobiles to run across their property. But the snowmobilers don’t come in great numbers, are not there year round and have their own insurance. The DeFreests also have to put up with the occasional people fishing in the trout stream that runs through their land. But the proposed rail trail, they believe, “would fundamentally change our life style.”
John also does not believe that the snowmobilers would be protected should the rail trail materialize. It would eventually be paved, he believes, and the snowmobiles would be excluded. And what would happen with the hunters and trappers who use the land around the old rail bed? He believes they would be regulated out of the area.
When the trail people said, “We have ways around that,” referring to landowners not agreeing to the plan, the DeFreests believe that they are not just talking about routing the trail somehow around the land in question. Despite the fact that the Greenway said participation is strictly voluntary and that legislation expressly forbids the Greenway Conservancy from “taking” any land to create the trail, the DeFreests maintain that eminent domain has been used in the past and might well be used again. The DeFreests believe that there are 20 landowners on the rail bed between New Lebanon and Berlin and that at least ten of these are opposed to the trail proposal. If that’s the case, they say, and they don’t propose to “take” any land, why pursue the idea further?
Even if land is not taken, the DeFreests note that there has already been peer pressure applied to some landowners to get them to come on board with the trail plan, and they expect this to increase. For landowners pressured to grant an easement on their property, the DeFreests warn that they have been advised by an attorney that “the holder of an easement is the ‘dominant’ estate. The person whose land the easement runs across is the ‘servient’ estate.” Landowners would have absolutely no control, John said.
Regardless of protection supposedly provided under the General Obligations Law, the DeFreests worry about liability. The Greenway does provide some insurance for property owners, but trails that allow motorized uses are ineligible. “Basically we’re liable,” the DeFreests said.
John scoffed at the idea of any economic benefits from the trail and also at the claim that potential home buyers would be looking for an area that has a recreational trail. That may be so, he said, but these potential buyers don’t want it in their back yard.
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