Winston Farm Impact Statement Needs More Work, Town Consultant Says
Proposed Development Areas
A developer’s map of the project.
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.”
The DGEIS is just one hurdle in the official approval process. Once ruled complete, the statement is subject to further review and a public hearing, after which the Saugerties Town Board, as lead agency in the process, will be the ones to decide to certify that state environmental guidelines have been satisfied. Local zoning and land use approvals remain to be sought.
Supporters of the current Winston Farm proposal see it as a source of jobs, housing, and economic prosperity. Critics question whether it will accord with the open space goals of the Town of Saugerties’s 2009 Vision Plan, the affordability of the project’s proposed housing, and the diversion of farmland in a time of widespread food insecurity.
Here’s what’s some of what’s missing or incomplete in the developers’ draft statement, according to a Sept. 24 memo to the town board from its lead consultants on the project, land-use experts Nelson Pope Voorhis.
The consultants found that the developers’ statement is not adequately comprehensible to the general public and cautioned about bias: “… Environmental impacts should be described in terms that the layperson can readily understand (e.g., truckloads of fill and cubic yards rather than just cubic yards) … The DGEIS is intended to convey general and technical information regarding the potential environmental impacts of the Project to the Town of Saugerties Town Board (as Lead Agency), agencies involved in the review of the Project, and to the interested public. The Preparer of the DGEIS is encouraged to keep the audience in mind as it prepares the document. Enough detail should be provided in each subject area to ensure that most readers of the document will understand, and be able to make Board decisions based upon, the information provided … the Preparer shall avoid subjective statements regarding potential impacts. The DGEIS should contain objective statements and conclusions of facts based upon technical analyses ...”
Descriptions of the project’s design and layout are totally absent, including total project area, proposed layout of buildings and structures including proposed uses, roads and parking details, utilities needs and construction practices and schedules. A comment from transportation experts at Valhalla-based Colliers Engineering and Design notes that “there is no separate analysis of special events [traffic] relative to the performing arts venue.”
The memo pointed to serious gaps in the statement's section on flood plains, surface water, and wetlands, including the need to measure water levels and flow rate of the Beaver Kill and to provide “reasonable and appropriate stormwater management on site.”
Also on the to-do list: “Map ecologically significant habitats on the site using scientifically accepted methods. Identify and map ecological communities and/or habitats important to the regional ecosystem, for example, matrix forests, habitat cores, etc.”
There’s more. So much more, in fact, that well over half of the draft statement’s 44 pages are either incomplete or totally missing necessary information. This has led some to speculate that the document was released prematurely, maybe for public relations reasons?
The developers’ would not say and, through a press representative, offered a generic reply: “Winston Farm is very receptive to, and appreciates, the Town of Saugerties’ feedback on our Draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement submission. We are methodically reviewing the Town’s comments and requests, both of which represent common components of the municipal-review sequence. We look forward to next steps.”
Saugerties Town Supervisor Fred Costello Jr. was more forthcoming. “I am not surprised,” he wrote to Kingston Wire by email. “Zoning modifications, especially town-sponsored initiatives, always go through multiple revisions ... Given the level of interest in this project, I expect a robust back-and-forth for many months. One distinctive difference in this project is that it is sponsored by the developers, not the town. During instances when the town is footing the bill, we have the luxury of building a consensus over years if necessary. Since the developers in this case are footing the bill, we have to be thoughtful about their willingness or ability to shoulder the cost of this process over a long period of time.”
