Sign the Petition
Cornwall, New York
Petition to the Town Board
Concerning the 2025 Draft Comprehensive Plan Update
Why We're Asking You to Sign
The 2025 Draft Comprehensive Plan Update contains recommendations that would change the character of Cornwall in lasting ways — removing caps on apartments above Main Street and Route 9W stores, rezoning the NYMA campus, and opening the door to large solar farms on open land.
This petition asks the Town Board to revise the Plan before adoption. By signing, you are joining your neighbors in asking for clear density caps, real impact studies, and a public look at the actual zoning rules before the Plan becomes law.
Read the full petition
To: The Honorable Members of the Cornwall Town Board, Town Hall, 183 Main Street, Cornwall, NY 10916
We, the undersigned residents, property owners, taxpayers, and registered voters of the Town of Cornwall, respectfully ask the Town Board not to adopt the 2025 Draft Comprehensive Plan Update as it is written today.
1. Item 7 — Removes the cap on apartments above Main Street stores with nothing in its place.
2. Item 20 — Does the same along Route 9W. No cap. Traffic, schools, and services not studied.
3. Item 33 — Rezones the NYMA property to Highway Commercial. Zoning runs with the land, not the owner. NYMA filed Chapter 11 in 2015 and has changed hands more than once in 126 years.
4. Item 33 (continued) — Combined with Item 20, a future owner of the 113-acre campus could build commercial buildings with unlimited apartments above them.
5. Item 27 — Opens the PCD zone to homes and mixed-use buildings, parcel by parcel, with no town-wide review.
6. Item 18 — Expands accessory apartments in single-family neighborhoods town-wide without studying impacts.
7. Item 51 — Permits large solar farms on land vaguely described as "previously disturbed" or "otherwise unusable." Rooftop solar (Item 50) is enough.
8. Sewer capacity — The Plan itself (Ch. VIII) admits the Firthcliffe plant runs over capacity. No fix proposed.
9. Misrepresenting public input — Of 647 survey respondents, only 138 chose apartments as a first choice; 146 wanted no new development.
10. No actual zoning amendments shown — Under NY Town Law §272-a the Plan is the legal basis for every zoning change that follows.
What we are asking for: rewrite Items 7, 18, 20, and 27 with clear caps and impact studies; tie any NYMA rezoning exclusively to boarding-school use, with automatic reversion if sold or closed; remove Item 51 and limit solar to rooftops; publish actual zoning amendments before any vote; hold a second public hearing with 30 days' notice and direct mailed notice to GC, HC, and PCD property owners; place this petition in the official record.
Thank you for signing.
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