The Town of Gardiner’s long delayed Comprehensive Plan was unanimously adopted by the Gardiner Town Board at its May 3 meeting.

The board voted 5-0 to approve the new Comprehensive Plan which hadn’t been updated for 18 years. Town officials made it clear that they hoped the plan would be updated every 10 years going forward.

“The Town’s Comprehensive Plan was from 2004 and desperately needed to be updated,” Supervisor Marybeth Majestic said in an email following the meeting. “The Town Board worked diligently to update the Comp Plan with participation from residents, businesses, farmers, boards, committees and commissions and we are very proud of the product that we produced.”

Majestic praised the work of consultant David Church during the process which began over a year ago.

“We could not have done this without our consultant David Church’s assistance and guidance,” Majestic said.

The board had originally hoped to have the new Comprehensive Plan done by the end of 2021. After announcing that it wanted to schedule a public hearing on Oct. 19, 2021, the board delayed the hearing until April 12, 2022, due to months of disagreements among board members over the language in the document.

Before the vote was taken at Tuesday’s meeting, Church said he had added some language regarding short-term rentals to the document as suggested by the Town Planning Board.

The document, which is posted to the town’s website, is intended to shape the overall pattern of development so that it conforms to the vision for the Town of Gardiner.

In addition to being approved by the Town Board, the Comprehensive Plan was reviewed by the Town Planning Board and the Ulster County Planning Board.