A.
The Master Plan envisions a recreational system which would incorporate the essential natural and scenic resources that have attracted people to the community over the years into a system of largely interconnected parks and open spaces. These resources, such as our morainal and pine barren woodlands, farmlands, ponds, bays and ocean and points of interest, as well as our scenic hamlets, would provide the setting or backdrop for specific recreational facilities and historic sites, or focal points, within the overall system. These focal points would be the active, high-traffic, recreation areas and would be lineally connected to the less active, natural, environmental parks by way of greenbelt corridors and trails.
(1)
The Master Plan notes that "as the overall park and open space system takes form, it will be important to recognize that new opportunities will exist to accommodate the social, economic, recreational and environmental programs that these new lands would accommodate."
(2)
The Master Plan also states "the lineal layout (of a system of trails) would be ideally suited to such activities." It further states that "relative to the acquisition of greenbelt linkage parks and other open spaces, much can be expected through the use of planned residential development... ."
B.
A partial description of the benefits associated with trails include the following:
(1)
Trails provide a multitude of opportunities related to outdoor recreation: hiking, strolling, cross-country skiing, photography, nature study, bird-watching, environmental education, horseback riding and bicycling. In addition, trails provide valuable public access corridors to ponds and woodland areas for hunters and fishermen.
(2)
Trails are land links that function as a planning tool. They can be utilized to join parklands and a growing inventory of lands that have become dedicated into open space as a result of the subdivision review process.
(3)
Trails can provide adjacent residential communities with corridors of open space that help to preserve natural vistas; they help to maintain sense-of-place distinctions between communities and provide casually passive transportation routes between neighborhoods.
(4)
Trails provide the critical habitat passages necessary for the natural movement of wildlife. There is a strong correlation linking access to natural areas and the ability of various wildlife to maintain sustainable populations.
(5)
Within residential communities, trail greenway areas can function as refuges for certain wildlife species and help to protect food sources for migratory birds.
(6)
Certain existing trails throughout the Town represent ancient pathways. The protection of such trails can help to preserve an important and often overlooked value associated with the Town's inventory of natural resources. Trails can function as historical corridors, tracing the course of colonial and native American use over hundreds of years.
(7)
Trails are a natural access to environmentally sensitive areas and serve to enhance an appreciation of the beauty and diversity of habitats that need to be preserved.
C.
The Town Board of the Town of Southampton finds and declares it to be the public policy of the Town to identify and protect existing trails, as well as to develop and maintain new linking trails to secure various social, economic, aesthetic and environmental benefits necessary to the health, safety and general welfare of present and future residents of Southampton.
D.
In order to implement these policies, a variety of local laws, regulations and policies have already been adopted. Chapter 247, Open Space, of the Town Code sets guidelines for open space preservation in planned residential developments (cluster subdivisions), and Chapter 292, Subdivision of Land, § 292-6.1, requires the identification and preservation of trails within proposed subdivisions and directs the Planning Board to encourage landowners to grant rights to the public to utilize trails.
E.
In order to further implement the Town's interest in trail development, the Trails Advisory Board was established by Town Board resolution dated February 25, 1992, to advise Town agencies on the many issues relative to the development and management of a comprehensive, Town-wide trail network.
F.
It is the intent of this chapter to affirm the establishment of the Trails Advisory Board; to express the general policy of the Town with respect to the protection of existing trails and the development of new trails; and to outline the duties and responsibilities of the Trails Advisory Board with respect to implementing these policies.