Winston Farm Impact Statement Needs More Work, Town Consultant Says

October 18, 2024

Proposed Development Areas

SAUGERTIES - The developers seeking to transform Winston Farm into, in their words, “a premier regional mixed-use destination venue for the Hudson Valley” have hit a stumbling block. Their draft generic environmental impact statement (DGEIS) has been rejected as incomplete by the town's lead consultant on the project.

Opponents of the project needn't start popping champagne, though. It is, after all, a draft, subject to amendment. On the other hand, the extent and importance of the incomplete or missing sections is surprising.

The farm's 840 acres are rich in local history and environmentally significant, sitting atop the Beaverkill Aquifer and within its official protection district. Previous attempts to turn the land into something more domesticated and commercialized than mere landscape have run aground over the last 30 years.

The current proposal, per the developers’ Aug. 15, 208-page DGEIS, envisions as many as 133 single-family homes, 115 townhouses, and 800 condo/apartment units as well as “a campground with 157 cabins and RV sites, 425,000 square feet of commercial retail space, a 150-room boutique hotel, a conference center with 300 hotel rooms, a 5,000-person amphitheater, and 375,000 square feet of lab or light-industrial space.”

Saugerties tell Winston Farm developers that environmental statement misses mark

By Willaim J. Kemble I October 17, 2024

SAUGERTIES, N.Y. — Town officials sent the Winston Farm draft generic environmental impact statement back to developers, saying it “came up short.”

The move was made Wednesday during a Town Board meeting without explaining what specific shortcomings were found with the document.

“We went through a scoping process where there was public input gathered,” Supervisor Fred Costello said. “The requests were for the (state environmental quality review) study…to respond directly to matters raised during the spoken process and for now those came up short.”

The draft impact statement calls for: 155 single-family homes on various lot sizes, 110 townhouses, 650 condo/apartment units, 100-cabin campground, 419,800 square feet of commercial retail space, 150-room boutique hotel, a conference center with 250 hotel rooms, 5,000-person performing arts center; and 250,000 square feet of lab or light-industrial space.

Developers are asking for the entire area to be designated as a Planned Development District. It is currently in the General Business, Moderate Density Residential, Hamlet Residential, Gateway Overlay, Aquifer Protection Overlay, and Sensitive Area Overlay districts.

The scoping document was developed from comments taken in 2022, with the sessions packing the Frank D. Greco Multi-Purpose Building and dozens of speakers providing concerns over what was being left out of a draft document released to the public.

A Different Path for Winston Farm

September 30, 2024

SAUGERTIES - Andrew Faust has a bone to pick with the developers of Winston Farm. A couple of bones, in fact, concerning the project’s impact on local water systems and the credibility of the developers’ projected economic costs and benefits.

Faust is founder and director of Ellenville-based Permaculture Living Lands Trust, a 501(c)(3) non-profit. Permaculture, per Wikipedia, “is an approach to land management and settlement design that adopts arrangements observed in flourishing natural ecosystems. It includes a set of design principles derived using whole-systems thinking.”

Having studied, taught, and implemented the practice for 30 years at sites throughout the Hudson Valley and in New York City, including the design of the Ashokan Center’s master plan, Faust has the credentials and experience to be taken seriously on development issues.

Permaculture expert shares an alternative vision for Winston Farm

September 25, 2024

Andrew Faust, an Ulster County resident with a national reputation for permaculture design and practice, appeared before the Saugerties Town Board at its regular meeting on September 18 to share an alternative vision for Winston Farm that supports it being developed as a showcase of the most sustainable agricultural practices. In his talk, sponsored by Beautiful Saugerties, Faust said the area is blessed with an abundance of clean water, which in turn offers the possibility of farming techniques that preserve soil fertility and are sustainable over time.

“The Permaculture Living Land Trust has been asked to play a part in developing an alternative vision for Winston Farm as we begin making it an educational hub with housing for farmers who will be trained in methods that are truly logical and are abundant in our capacity to provide us with food and water,” said Faust. After a good deal of research, he has concluded that Saugerties has the potential to be a “green jobs training center.” Saugerties could become a destination “for people all over the northeast who want to see a community that is actually doing something that is by the people and for the people.”

Winston Farm is historically a livestock farm, Faust said. A star dairy operation that had heritage breed cattle. “The livestock would be part of a system of rotation of animal and plant growth that would develop sustainable food production for the local economy, not to be shipped across the country,” he said.                                                                                                              

Faust explained that he has been working with Ulster County on a variety of projects involving soil and water. “I have been working in this community for decades, wanting to bring more food security and water security by bringing forests back into the landscape.” The operation Faust is proposing would also help meet the needs of the many food pantries in the area “that struggle to meet food demands.”

His aim is to make Winston Farm both an agricultural demonstration and education site and “a highly productive agricultural ecosystem.”

Andrew Faust Presentation

Sept 19, 2024

Permaculture expert Andrew Faust's presentation at the September 18 Saugerties Town Board meeting was impressive and inspiring: a regional food hub consisting of a regenerative farm, including intensive vegetable production plus a small dairy,  as well as a "food forest" of nut trees. This is a use for Winston Farm that looks to the needs of the actual future, working with nature instead of against it, as the currently proposed mixed-use commercial/residential development would do by bulldozing and paving large parts of the property.

Experienced in the development of such sites, Faust was confident that the funding required to get the project up and running would be found following the purchase of the property by a not-for-profit land conservancy. It's known that the state of New York is interested in such a project as part of the state parks system. Furthermore, the project itself would create jobs for people who want to turn their hand to farming as well as the many other kinds of jobs required to keep a large agricultural operation going,  and create housing for those who work on the property, potentially hundreds of people. 

Winston Farm Presentation Peppered with Questions about ‘Confidential’ Planning Document

News by Steve Ellman I 9/15/24 • Land Use

A public forum at the Orpheum Thursday on plans to develop Winston Farm took a detour from outlining the project approval process into questions of official transparency. The concerns were sparked by town of Saugerties officials having requested the developers remove their draft generic environmental impact statement (DGEIS) from public view – after the document had initially been published on the developer’s website last month.

Per state law, the DGEIS, a required part of the State Environmental Quality Review (SEQR) process, ”provides a means for agencies, public sponsors, and the public to systematically consider significant adverse environmental impacts, alternatives and mitigation. It facilitates the weighing of social, economic and environmental factors in the planning of decision-making process."

The forum was the first in a series hosted by upstate films and community activists ShoutOut Saugerties, with town supervisor Fred Costello Jr. and Town Planner Adrianna Beltrani as speakers and writer/filmmaker Jon Bowermaster moderating a question-and-answer period. Local interest was such that the room was packed and a crowd outside was turned away at the door.

The evening began with an introduction by Costello including the history of prior development plans for the farm and, tellingly, a nostalgic tribute to "this almost mystical property" and it’s place in local memory: "For most of us the experience we have there was sleigh riding on Snyder’s Hill."

Skeptics question how well that "mythical" status will hold up if the developer’s plans are realized. The DGEIS, as posted August 15, runs 208 pages and considers a plan for up to 133 single-family homes, 115 town houses and 800 condo/apartment units, as well as "a campground with 157 cabins and RV sites, 425,000 square feet of commercial retail space, a 150-room boutique hotel, a conference center with 300 hotel rooms, a 5000-person amphitheater and 375,000 square feet of lab or light industrial space."

Those details were not the evenings focus or of Town Planners Beltrani’s presentation. She confined herself to a description of the long and complicated approval process faced by the developers – or anyone attempting a development of similar scope – and hoops to be jump through for the many state and local agencies who will have a say in the matter. Beltrani’s PowerPoint graphics resembled an especially fiendish Rube Goldberg contraption.

Saugerties to put Winston Farm plans back online after getting panned over removal

By William J. Kemble | news@freemanonline.com

UPDATED: September 13, 2024 at 4:27 p.m.

SAUGERTIES, N.Y. — Town officials have agreed to repost the Winston Farm draft generic environmental impact statement after being criticized for removing the document outlining a zoning change request.

Objections to the removal were raised Thursday at a forum intended to keep residents appraised of the Town Board zoning change request for a sprawling residential and commercial development on about 840 acres along state Route 32.

“This is what makes the public feel like they are being hoodwinked,” resident Gilda Riccardi said.

“A draft is a draft,” she said. “We all know what a draft is. A draft means that things get to be changed for whatever reason. It happens all the time. But to be told by our Town Hall that it wasn’t filed when I know it was filed, when I actually saw an email with it, was disingenuous and I think that’s what makes many people nervous.”

Supervisor Fred Costello on Friday said the document should reappear as soon as it can be clearly labeled as an application that is still being reviewed for completeness.

Developers on Aug. 15 submitted the draft environmental impact statement to the town and posted a version on the winstonfarm.com website. However, the online version was removed at the request of the town’s planners, with leading consultant Adriana Beltrani contending it is a “preliminary” document that can be withheld to avoid “misinformation” being conveyed to the community.

“This is not a document that should be released to the public or any of the agencies because we don’t know if it is a complete document, yet,” she said. “We have 45 pages of scoping notes to compare against what was submitted and it’s not released for review because if it’s incomplete we send it…back to the project sponsor to be fixed so that it is complete. That process can go back and forth quite a bit, so we don’t want to release it to the public because we need you to save your time and energy (for) the review of the final document.”

The draft impact statement calls for 155 single-family homes on various lot sizes, 110 townhouses, and 650 condo/apartment units. There would also be a 100-cabin campground; 419,800 square feet of commercial retail space; a 150-room boutique hotel; a conference center with 250 hotel rooms; a 5,000-person performing arts center; and 250,000 square feet of lab or light-industrial space.

Environmentalists seek full reports on claims for well tests at Winston Farm

by Crispin Kott I September 10, 2024 in News

Developers of the proposed mixed-use “live, work, play” project on 840 acres of the Winston Farm in Saugerties are touting the results of comprehensive testing of two wells on the property. They claim the project will be self-sufficient with regard to water. 

But not everyone is convinced.

Kathy Nolan is senior research director with Catskill Mountainkeeper, a non-profit environmental group keeping a close eye on the Winston Farm proposal. She said that at the very least the developers’ claims lack nuance.

“It is believable that they had results from their well-testing that make them feel satisfied,” said Nolan, also a county legislator. “The difference is that we don’t have the full reports on those well tests. They haven’t been shared. Many of the appendices are missing from the draft environmental impact statement. So there’s still a situation where we’re being asked to feel good about information that is only coming from the people with a vested interest in the project going forward.”

In a press release dated September 4, the developers claimed that the testing of two wells drawing from underground sources yielded a combined 270 gallons per minute, with no evidence of water being drawn from neighboring wells or other sources. The developers claim the water was deemed either satisfactory or readily treatable, with no contamination by per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance (PFAS) compounds.

Two separate wells with six-inch diameters were simultaneously tested, one on the Winston Farm and another on the Montano well on a neighboring property. The Winston Farm well had a net groundwater withdrawal capacity of 220 gallons a minute, while the Montano well’s withdrawal capacity was 50 gallons per minute.