Letters to the editor
Good for the land and good for the people
Marty Martin’s characterization of Beautiful Saugerties (HV1, 10/30/24) as “angry” is erroneous and uninformed. Beautiful Saugerties is not angry but deeply concerned about the massive overdevelopment proposed by the current owners of Winston Farm in their application for rezoning. What Beautiful Saugerties strongly supports is the preservation of as much of the property, intact, as possible, under the terms of the current or any future zoning.
The Winston Farm ecosystem is too valuable to the local environment and, in its small way, to the much larger, global picture of the health of the entire planet as well. Our literal survival as a community, a civilization, and possibly as a species depends on minimizing, preferably ending, the destruction of nature, on which human survival depends, in the name of the false promises of economic growth. And in fact, Saugerties’ Comprehensive Plan (a legally binding document) requires that 73% of the property remain as open space no matter what else is built there. Beautiful Saugerties is working to ensure that adherence to that plan results in undisturbed woodland, wetland, meadow, habitat and water supply, and beyond that, that any development that occurs be done with the lightest possible footprint and the greenest available technology.
Mr. Martin’s suggestion that we “sit down with the owners” in hopes of finding a “happy common ground” is a good but belated one. Indeed, representatives of Beautiful Saugerties have already met with the owners to propose alternatives to the kind of over-development they envision, all of which were good-humoredly dismissed, while the true motive of maximizing return on investment was clearly stated. We would embrace a series of true community conversations (not presentations intended to persuade) where residents with open minds could talk about future design, where no one was holding fast to a pre-determined point of view, where visionary possibilities could emerge that were “good for the land and good for the people.” (And what is good for the land is also good for the people.)
Janet Moss
Susan Murphy
Bill Barr
Margarita Asiain
For Citizens for a Beautiful Saugerties
Save Winston Farm
“Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you got
‘till it’s gone?
They paved paradise and put up a
parking lot”
Joni Mitchell had it right and they’re still at it. Save Winston Farm!
Arabella Colton
Saugerties
