6 Mulberry St Update

On Tuesday evening, the Village Board voted to begin the State Environmental Quality Review (“SEQR”) process on the rezoning application from the owners of 6 Mulberry Street (locally known as the Father Brogan Center or the Bukleley School).

What we did:

1. Start the process to begin SEQR review. This means that the village will undergo the review required by the state environmental law for any zoning change and large real estate development. Usually these would be done separately – one review for the zoning change, and one for the development – but because this application is for both at once, the SEQR process will encompass both.

2. Promise to ask for and welcome advice and comment from both the Village Planning Board and the Village Comprehensive Plan Committee during this process.

3. Promise to have the following policies guide the Village as important factors to guide the process:

   • Preservation of historic buildings and districts;

   • Adaptive reuse of existing buildings;

   • Availability of multifamily housing;

   • Availability of affordable housing; and

   • Availability of housing for those with physical disabilities.

4. Promise to allow for alternatives to the specific request laid out in the application.

What we didn’t do:

1. Change our zoning law.

2. Approve the project.

The application, submitted on June 10, 2022, is asking for the Village to change its zoning law to permit the adaptive reuse of 6 Mulberry (approximately a 15,500 sf structure on 1.4 acres near the village center, a contributing building in the federally recognized Rhinebeck Historic District) to allow for multifamily housing. Multifamily housing (anything more than a two-family structure) is currently not allowed in the residential district of the Village. The plan would subdivide the land into five lots. Four of these would be individual houses, and the fifth would hold the existing building, which would then be converted into nine apartments (five of which would be ADA accessible, all of which would be ADA compliant). The detailed application and all related information can be found here.

The Village Board held a public comment on this application on June 26, 2022, performed a planning review of the application, held another public comment on October 3, 2022, and allowed for public comment again on Tuesday before holding a board discussion and vote.

Over the next few months, the village expects to receive information about the community’s vision for the future of our land use from the Comprehensive Plan process and will take that information into strong consideration while considering how to move forward with this specific application.

As always, we strive to have as open and transparent a process as possible and welcome the public’s opinion.

Mayor Gary Bassett and the Village Board of Trustees