Saugerties tell Winston Farm developers that environmental statement misses mark
By WILLIAM J. KEMBLE I 10/17/24
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.
Among the concerns voiced several times was that Winston Farm is considered a “carbon sink” that sequesters carbon to offset the harmful impacts of fossil fuel use. The comments included a request that a study be done to determine how much of a beneficial environmental impact currently exists at the site and how much would be lost through development.
Another request was to have a study done on how the project would evolve, with the review looking specifically at the removal of a wide forested area on the 800-acre property and how that would impact the community character five and six generations into the future.
Concerns from environmental groups have also focused on the biodiversity of Winston Farm, which has been found to have a fragmented habitat system that is important to a wide variety of wildlife. Among findings in a Hudsonia report is that the site provides a refuge for many songbirds, raptors, snakes, and large mammals because of its mix of wetlands, open space, and forested area.
Costello on Wednesday also revived discussion over whether the public was entitled to have seen the draft environmental impact statement, telling the audience that it was put back online last month despite the belief consultants were correct to have taken it off the project’s website.
State Committee on Open Government Assistant Director Kristin O’Neill last month said a draft environmental impact statement, even in preliminary form, should be available to the public. “If it was submitted by an applicant…I can see no reason why it wouldn’t be,” she said.
Opinions provided by the State Committee on Open Government dating to 1994 cite the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s own requirements that explain all “draft EIS’s” are available to the public. “All SEQR documents and notices…must be maintained in files that are readily accessible to the public and made available on request,” state officials wrote.
