ESG Welcomes Advisory Board Member Nan Stolzenburg, Rural Community and Environmental Planning Expert
“I support the Empire State Greenhouse project for many reasons – but especially because it is a project fully consistent with the adopted Schoharie County Agricultural and Farmland Protection Plan. It promotes diversification of agriculture in the County, expansion of new agricultural technologies, enhancement of the local, regional, and state-wide food system, and will promote a vital, renewable rural economy. It is also an innovative project that shows how agriculture can be vital while reducing demand on fossil fuel and addressing important global and environmental needs.”
Nan Stolzenburg’s 25-year career as a planning consultant, built upon 10 years of prior work in the wildlife/natural resources field, has significantly contributed to rural community and environmental planning throughout the Hudson Valley and upstate regions of New York State. She concentrates on the unique community and environmental planning needs of small and rural communities by providing comprehensive land use, and environmental planning services. Her unique background, including an MS in Wildlife and Fisheries Biology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and an MRP in Regional Planning from the University at Albany, integrates environmental conservation with land use planning. Nan works to build consensus, help communities to maintain their rural character, improve quality of life, and protect the environment.
Nan was recently called upon by Congressman Antonio Delgado (NY-19) to testify in a hearing on Renewable Energy in Rural Communities. She has been a consistent innovator in helping over 70 small communities embrace comprehensive planning, asset-based economic development, and implementation of innovative land use tools. Recognized as an expert in rural planning, Nan has developed dozens of agricultural and farmland protection plans resulting in such accomplishments as creation of a local “Ag-navigator” to enhance agricultural economic development, implementation of transfer of development rights programs, and establishment of agricultural overlay districts.
Her work as planning board consultant in multiple communities has improved streetscapes protected stream riparian areas and contributed to the first application of conservation subdivision. Nan effectively uses GIS through buildout analysis, land prioritization techniques, viewshed analysis, and more recently, solar capacity analysis. She has had widespread positive impact on environmental protection through her authorship of the NYS SEQR Environmental Assessment Form Workbooks, used throughout the state for all required site plan, subdivision, and zoning permit processes.
Currently, she serves as an Advisory Council member for the Schoharie Economic Enterprise Corporation, as a member of the Board of Directors for Schoharie Community Development Corporation, as a former member of the Board of Directors of the Catskill Center for Conservation and Development, a member of the Planning Committee for the Bender Melon Farm Preserve, and as an active member the Gallupville House Association, a community group working to repurpose an historic hotel in her community. Formerly, she served as member of the Executive Board of the New York State Chapter of the Wildlife Society, and as a member of the Board of Director for The Schoharie Land Trust.
