By LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Winston Farm project would destroy quality of life in Saugerties
A hard truth, that some people still don’t get: We cannot continue to build, pave, destroy habitat, deplete aquifers in the name of growth, development and profit, destroying the very fabric of the Earth on which we depend.
Winston Farm is a perfect microcosm of the challenge we face. The developers want their profit, the Town Board its potential tax base. The American Way! But growth and profit at what
cost?
Saugerties is already choking on traffic. Its aquifers are strained and always in danger of contamination. Houses stand empty, because it’s not profitable to rehab them.
Now there’s a proposal to build 133 homes, 115 townhouses, 800 apartments, a campground with 157 cabins and RV sites, 425,000 square feet of retail, a 150-room hotel, a conference center/300-room hotel, a 5,000-person amphitheater, and 375,000 square feet of industrial space on what is now woodland and fields.
Want to destroy the quality of life in Saugerties? This will do it. We already have plenty of land zoned for development, and a large conference hotel. We don’t need a single inch of Winston Farm for those things.
The Open Space Institute offered $10 million to purchase the property for a state park, giving the developers $6 million profit over their purchase, but that wasn’t enough for them.
What a relief it would be, to have that precious place finally protected as a state park!
I ask the Town Board to refuse this proposed catastrophic overdevelopment, for the good of the whole region.
— Susan J. Murphy
Saugerties
Originally Published: September 3, 2024 at 1:57 p.m.
