Colonie, NY Landscaping Rules: Native Plants (2026)

Section 190-30H sets special standards for the portions of Colonie's Conservation Development Overlay District that lie in areas influenced by the Albany Pine Bush Preserve. Subsection H(1) directs that native Albany Pine Bush species be used to landscape new commercial, industrial, and residential buildings to the greatest extent practicable, and requires the Town to make a list of those native species available to an applicant on request. The overlay itself, established under § 190-30A and B, applies to site plan and subdivision review within the Conservation Development Overlay, subject to exemptions for minor site plans, minor subdivisions, and sites the Planning Board finds have no conservation value.

Because the native-planting duty is written as "to the greatest extent practicable" rather than an absolute bar, the Planning Board retains discretion over how strictly it applies the standard on a given site plan, but it is still an affirmative design standard the Board reviews for compliance during conceptual and final site plan review under § 190-30D and G. Related Pine Bush standards in the same subsection require open-space set-asides to protect ravines, dunes, and rare-species habitat, favor smaller dispersed parking lots over one large lot, and discourage clear-cutting land rather than following its contours.

PEDD administers Conservation Overlay Districts under § 190-33A, and a landscaping plan that ignores the native-species standard can be a basis for the Planning Board to withhold or condition site plan or subdivision approval rather than a separate fineable offense.