At a Sept. 2 public hearing, the Milan Planning Board reviewed a site plan for Mirror Lake Retreat, a campground at 64 White Drive, that would add eight recreational vehicle sites to the property.
Mirror Lake Retreat currently has seven RV sites on its 220-acre property, and the proposed expansion would bring the total to 15.
Planning Board Chair James Jeffreys said he consulted with the town’s planning attorney, Lee Lefkowitz, on how the property’s grandfathered RV use would apply to the proposed expansion, a concern raised by board members at the July and August meetings.
“One reference he made concerned grandfather properties that operated as a campground, that a community subsequently zoned out of,” Jeffreys said. “The courts determined that if the prior intent of the property was always to be utilized as a campground, that expansion and continuation of that use is a permitted grandfather consideration.”
Jeffreys said his research on the property’s history showed that it has been used as a campground since 1928, when it was called Mark’s Memorial Camp of the Tribune Fresh Air Fund. Ownership shifted to the Church of the Nazarene in 1966. At the time, it included a dining hall, cottages, an arts and crafts building, shower facilities, athletic fields, playgrounds, and a 20-acre spring-fed lake, Jeffreys said.
It was called Camp Taconic in 1966. It was subsequently named Taconic Retreat and Conference Center, and later Mirror Lake Retreat, as it is called today.
Based on that history, Jeffreys said, the board would have the ability to allow the proposed expansion.
The board received a letter of concern from Kimberly Wheeler, who lives on Indian Road, just north of the Mirror Lake property, raising concerns about the impact of additional development on wildlife, as well as increases in noise and traffic.
Jeffrey Barker, district superintendent of the Metro New York District Church of the Nazarene, said the retreat has no desire to expand into the surrounding forest areas and disrupt wildlife.
“It is a campground, we have youth there a lot especially through the summer, it’s far less utilized throughout the winter, but certainly there’s going to be campfires and we certainly pay attention to necessary codes and restrictions, especially in the dry season,” Barker said. “RV use is a central part of the camp experience now, certainly from the 60s moving on. It is not intended to be long-term tenancy at least from my perspective.”
John O’Connor, who attended the public hearing and said he was a neighbor of Wheeler’s, asked if the applicant planned to add more entrances on the north side of the campus, closer to his home. Engineer Tom Harvey, who represents Mirror Lake, said that was not part of the proposed site plan.
Harvey also clarified that campers bring their own RVs to the campground and park them in designated spots. The retreat does not provide the RVs.
The public hearing remains open while the board completes its review and submits the site plan documents to the Dutchess County Department of Planning and Development. The board’s next meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 7.