Goshen - Don't let a plan to preserve Orange County's rural charm sit on a shelf collecting dust. Put some money behind it. That's what nearly a dozen people urged county legislators to do last night at a public hearing on the county's first ever Open Space Plan, an agenda which, if approved, could inject up to $4 million into green space.

"Farm is where the heart is," said Jeanne Ryan, quoting a mantra from her farming childhood. "That's where it needs to stay." Ryan and others pleaded with the scant number of legislators who attended the public hearing at the Orange County legislative chambers to adopt the plan, which calls for open space preservation and millions of dollars to make sure, as one speaker said, Orange County doesn't become all pavement and strip malls.

"It's time. It's time," said Ann Botshon, a member of the Orange County Land Trust. "The pressures on this county are enormous. We need to hold on to a sense of place." The plan catalogs the 136,151 acres of parks, reservoir lands and nature preserves that make up 26 percent of the county's area. The plan also includes the preservation of some 20,000 acres more. County Executive Edward Diana proposes spending $2 million with matching funds from local municipalities to buy key plots of the open space.

The plan has received praise and support from a variety of citizens' groups and environmental organizations. It has also received criticism from developers, realtors and business people who fear activists will use the plan to bolster "no-growth" agendas. Those concerns have been written to the county's planning commissioner, David Church, the plan's architect.

Michael R. Edelstein, president of the non-profit group Orange Environment, said the organization selected the county's plan to receive its annual government award. He applauded county officials' efforts to move this plan forward. "The cost of the existing growth pattern - in dollars, congestion, lost quality of life, and lost environmental quality - is an excessive burden for taxpayers and residents now and an unacceptable legacy for the future," he wrote in a statement.

The public hearing will continue 4.30 p.m. tomorrow at the Legislative Chambers in the Orange County Government Center. Written comments will be accepted until May 14.

http://www.recordonline.com/archive/2004/04/27/kwopensp.htm