It takes a village, they say. To do what? you might ask. Build new infrastructure? Support neurodiversity? Choose the best grocery store?
The dozens of people combing over walls pasted with zoning maps, population charts, and housing data in Rhinebeck’s Village Hall might not look like the soul of a community pondering these challenges, but many of them have been mulling the questions for more than two and half years. Not during a glitzy forum or in public debates, but quietly, methodically—through the sometimes-boring workings of government.
These Rhinebeck residents, including lifelong locals and freshly minted transplants, were scanning prints of the Village of Rhinebeck’s new draft 74-page comprehensive plan, a deceptively impactful legal document that attempts to articulate the community’s values, strengths, weaknesses, and desires for its own future.
“What is a village for? What is its purpose?” questions Matt Johnston, the chair of the Comprehensive Plan Committee, which guided the creation of the document. As a professional facilitator with experience coaching executives and startups around the country, his questions helped direct the work’s legal recommendations and decisions as minute as permissible sidewalk materials.S
Because of these knotty issues, the committee’s years of work also produced the document’s story, which Johnston explains, is a story of community engagement. It’s hard to explain the importance of the document without slipping into legalese, but Johnston emphasized that its recommendations, from the most technical to the most ambitious, were driven by the committee volunteers’ interactions. They reached over 1,000 individuals in Rhinebeck—an impressive number for a village of 2,800. It led to a plan that tries to turn high-minded ideals into actions, from housing to accessibility to sustainability.
“There are some things that are clearly distinct about what’s occurred here,” Johnston says. “My sense of it is that part of what occurred is a real commitment to listening and engaging in a dialogue about what matters.”
That dialogue produced a forward-thinking vision of the village’s future, providing concrete if ambitious solutions for its problems. For example, Rhinebeck residents say they value the village as a commercial and social hub for the broader region, but there’s no physical space to anchor. So the plan recommends the creation of an expansive village green, an open lawn for the community to gather and host events.
The plan received public comments that the committee will take into consideration before voting on a final document to send to the village government, where it will once again go through a public hearing process. Only once that finishes can officials vote to adopt it as law, and incorporate its recommendations into a new zoning code. The public hearing process is expected to continue for most of this year, with the updated code ideally taking shape in 2025, officials say.
“When you’re in a village and you live next to people you don’t necessarily agree with, you still have to be able to talk to them,” says Village Trustee Lydia Slaby, who has spearheaded the comprehensive plan project since she took office in 2020. “You have to be able to work together.”
All People
Working together to achieve a community-wide goal isn’t new for Rhinebeck. Creating an accessible community—something highlighted in the plan—for autistic and neurodiverse residents has been an ongoing program in the village.
This year marks the centennial anniversary of the Anderson Center for Autism, a sprawling nonprofit that educates and cares for people on the autism spectrum. The center was founded in Shrewsbury, New Jersey, by Dr. Victor V. Anderson in 1924 but moved its campus to Staatsburg just two years later. Since then, it has educated over 1,700 students, many of whom have lived on campus, receiving full-time care from specialists and medical professionals.
Reflecting on the anniversary, working outside campus has been an especially important part of Anderson’s mission, says CEO Patrick D. Paul. “The reality is that individuals who have autism or neurodivergent needs really need the support of the community,” he says. “We’re all people and we all want a community we can access and engage in.”
Rhinebeck was the first municipalty to receive Anderson’s Autism Supportive Community (ASC) designation, distinguishing the village’s push to increase awareness and knowledge of autism. Dozens of participating restaurants and businesses have received some level of training to provide support for people with autism. “They had the concept and we implemented it,” says Village Mayor Gary Bassett, who also serves on the ASC Committee, adding that it’s a win-win for the businesses and neurodivergent community members wanting to enjoy the village.
Lorrie Kruger, who co-owns Rhinebeck Mercantile, a boutique in the center of the village, knows firsthand the intersection of these interests, as her son Owen, 19, was diagnosed with autism before the age of three.
He has been living at the Anderson campus for the last six years, but through public school has been attending classes on campus for 12. Growing up, he has benefited from both Anderson’s care and his mother’s knowledge of the local Rhinebeck community. Through the programs which teach life and vocational skills, from personal hygiene to communication, Kruger has been able to stay close to her son even as he spends most of his nights at Anderson.
“He needed a team,” says Kruger, who says she communicates with her son even though he is considered “nonverbal” because he can’t form a complete sentence, though he often speaks and expresses himself through software on a tablet.
While Anderson takes its students on trips to Poughkeepsie, Albany, or New York City, recently going to see “Aladdin” on Broadway, one of the Kruger’s favorite local spots is Village Pizza on East Market Street, itself an Autism Supportive Community business. “It’s pizza and ice cream,” says Kruger. “What’s not to love?”
Volume of Wisdom
Rhinebeck’s many businesses are constantly changing with the direction of the community. Prominently, the much-loved A. L. Stickle variety store closed its doors after 76 years last May. But an existing local business quickly moved in to replace it—Upstate Down, a real estate and design firm that also sells art, furniture, and household goods.
Opening its doors in March, the owners are renting the space from the Stickle family and are interested in maintaining the history of the space as they leave their own mark on it. “Reinventing a space is what I love to do,” says Delyse Berry, who co-owns Upstate Down with her husband Jon, but she says she wants to “make sure we’re honoring the history of the space as much as we can.”
The real test of a community is not just what it sells, but what it talks about. Radio Free Rhinecliff, an online radio station and podcast platform which broadcasts in the hamlet of Rhinecliff, has been programming with the local audience in mind since its inception three years ago.
Jennifer Ciotta, the host of “The Rhinebeck Scoop,” regularly experiences how the local community both comes together and bickers. Her biweekly show mixes up news, social commentary, and local gossip as Ciotta dives into topics as varied as affordable housing and “how to get laid.”
“You want to poke at things and have fun, but you don’t want to go too far,” says Ciotta, a novelist who hosts two of her own podcasts outside of Radio Free Rhinecliff. She says her most controversial discussion on the show wasn’t about politics—though she avoids directly discussing local elections—it was about which grocery store is the best in the area.
“You’re walking this fine line,” says Ciotta, who shops at Tops, Whole Foods, and Sunflower Market, along with farmstands like Hearty Roots and Migliorelli. “You have to pick and choose your battles wisely.”
But even that controversy comes from shared experience, the core characteristic of village life, says Matty Rosenberg, a founder of Radio Free Rhinecliff who cohosts the show with Ciotta. “When I go to the farmers’ market and talk to people,” he says, “they can tell me ‘I loved so and so on the show.’ This brings the people in town together.”
That shared experience relies on the people, and as all of these transitions and complicated changes take place in the community, officials, residents, and business owners repeatedly stressed the quality of expertise committed to creating a prosperous future.
Johnston and Slaby both say they benefited from the community’s knowledge firsthand as they reached out to every corner of the village, soliciting opinions to inform the comprehensive plan. “The volume of wisdom that was made more available to me was incredible,” says Johnston. “There’s an incredible amount of expertise that’s available here in the village.”
It will take continued effort for the village to adapt to the long-term struggles identified in the comprehensive plan—from the housing crisis to climate change—but many community members echoed a desire to face the challenges together. They might not agree on where to shop, but many are ready to compromise to make Rhinebeck a place to get things done.