Bullville’s local businesses received a huge boost last Thursday after the Town of Crawford board established a new law during its public hearing that will revitalize the hamlet’s commercial development.

The law transformed four office-residential lots along Route 302 and 17K into business park zoning districts and added hotels and restaurants to the town’s special permit uses for O-R zoning districts. Charles Carnes, the town’s supervisor, explained that Bullville currently lacks growth and the board seeks to beautify and attract more businesses to its area.
“Bullville does not feel like they are part of the town; they are forgotten, sad, depressed and fragmented,” Carnes said. “So the results of that went into the comprehensive plan, which is our legal document moving forward for the Town of Crawford.”

“Back before Covid slowed the whole thing down, I worked with Dan (McCann, Crawford’s director of safety and security) and the town board and we received a $125,000 grant to revitalize Bullville. In the master plan, the town should continue to provide an appropriate mix of housing growth and Bullville should focus on attracting commercial ratables to these areas,” he continued.

Carnes also prefaced that the board will not add large-scale hotels to Bullville, but rather smaller lodging services like boutique hotels and bed-and-breakfast inns.

“Nobody’s going to build a hotel. The large hotels are not coming to Bullville, New York with no water or sewer. I know certain people posted that stuff on Facebook, it’s not gonna happen,” he said, adding that boutique hotels and inns are popular in Orange County.

Lynda Roger-Seely, a resident and administrator of the Facebook group “Crawford Truths,” opened public comment with her support for the law and read feedback she received from other residents.

“I think this is a fantastic idea, I think it’s a long time coming. I think it’s in a perfect area, there aren’t many homes there. It’s got the natural flow of two roads that don’t really need work,” Roger-Seely said.

“The first comment was that it promotes movement into the community and increases the tax base. If you make it look nice, it’s a win-win all around,” she continued, reading through comments. “Another comment was ‘I would like to see something similar to Noble Coffee Roasters in Campbell Hall, with maybe some reading notes and a stage for local artists to come and play.”

Kate Leochner, manager of Stonehenge Farm, discussed how this law will allow Stonehenge to expand its property and operate all year long.

“This is something that is going to benefit us to be open all year round. As a manager and being there for the last 13 years, I know how many people miss Stonehenge when it’s not there,” Leochner said. “This past spring, I’ve had people tell me they didn’t grow vegetable gardens because they couldn’t get their plant material. Now with this, we can expand so much more within our store and everything else that we can provide to the community by doing this. Hopefully, this is going forward for all of us and Bullville.”
Andrew Justin, the owner of Stonehenge Farm, shared Leochner’s sentiment and speculated that developing Bullville’s intersection will reduce speeding and attract more customers.

“As far as traffic, it seems to me the reason that people are flying through that spot is because there’s nothing there and it looks like a barren area. As things get built up and developed, people will start slowing down, people start paying attention to different businesses, residential, whatever use is happening there,” he said.

Bruce Roma, a resident, raised concerns about the traffic impact that lodging services could have on the hamlet. Carnes assured that development would have a minimal impact, considering that both Route 32 and 17K are already popular roads

“You’re going to have traffic coming from New York City, Brooklyn, five boroughs, coming up to do a bed-and-breakfast. They’re still going to be bringing traffic and other people are going to be coming in. Do you really want to open up to the outsiders per se?,” Roma asked.

“Tourism is a big thing to keep going on. I don’t believe that traffic impact will be realized with two major state roads right there,” Carnes responded.

Denise Eanelli, another resident, requested that the board carefully considers its plans if it allows businesses to develop near residential properties. Carnes clarified that the town’s transition zoning would prevent businesses from developing too close to residents.

“I’m asking you to please think about the future of businesses coming in and placing business alongside homes,” Eanelli said.

“We don’t do that. We usually have transition zones for our zoning in between the residents and businesses,” Carnes responded.

After public comment concluded, the board closed the hearing and motioned to adopt the law. In his closing remarks, Carnes asserted that he and the board will keep residents’ taxes low but will need to incorporate more businesses in Crawford to do so.

“Whether we like it or not in certain areas, we have to look for ratables in the Town of Crawford, Carnes said. “We’re mainly all residential, the residential can’t support it. We need some of these warehouses and things that are coming in. I know they’re bad to come along with certain ones, but without that, your taxes are going up.”