Teresa M. Kenny
Supervisor
Phone:
(845) 359-5100
Email:
Meeting - Town Board Meeting May 18, 2009 Public Hearing (View All)
Overview
Documents
Meeting Members
| Date | Name | Group(s) | Type | Approved | File |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 05/18/2009 | Town Board Meeting May 18, 2009 | Town Board | Minutes |
Meeting Members
Meeting Overview
| Scheduled: | |
| Group(s): | Town Board |
| Location: |
| Documents | Type | File |
|---|---|---|
| Town Board Meeting May 18, 2009 | Minutes |
PH
TOWN OF ORANGETOWN
PUBLIC HEARING
RPC-DRAFT GENERIC ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT
MONDAY, MAY 18, 2009
This Public Hearing was opened at 7:42 p.m. from the Audit Meeting. Supervisor Kleiner presided and the Town Clerk called the Roll. Present were:
Councilman Denis Troy
Councilwoman Marie Manning
Councilwoman Nancy Low-Hogan
Councilman Michael Maturo
Also present: Charlotte Madigan, Town Clerk
John Edwards, Town Attorney
Suzanne Barclay, Executive Assistant to the Supervisor
Charles Richardson, Director of Finance
James Dean, Superintendent of Highways
Ron Delo, Director of the Dept. of Envtl Management & Engineering
Robert Simon, Receiver of Taxes
John Giardiello, Director of OBZPAE
Charlotte Madigan, Town Clerk, led the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag.
RESOLUTION NO. 321 OPEN CONTINUATION PH/ RPC-DRAFT GENERIC ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT
Councilwoman Manning offered the following resolution, which was seconded by Councilman Maturo and was unanimously adopted:
RESOLVED, that the Town Board entered the continuation of a public hearing to consider and accept public comment amending the zoning provisions and the Draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement for development of the Rockland Psychiatric property at 7:42 p.m..
Ayes: Councilpersons Manning, Maturo, Troy, Low-Hogan
Supervisor Kleiner
Noes: None
Charlotte Madigan, Town Clerk, presented the Affidavit of Publication and the Notice of Posting; copies are labeled Exhibit 05-C-09 and made a part of these minutes.
A full transcript, with public comments, of this public hearing has been made a part of these minutes and is labeled Exhibit 5-D-09.
RESOLUTION NO. 322 CLOSE PUBLIC COMMENTS
Councilwoman Low-Hogan offered the following resolution, which was seconded by Councilwoman Manning and was unanimously adopted:
RESOLVED, the public hearing, regarding the Draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement, for development of the Rockland Psychiatric property, is hereby closed. The public can submit written comments until 5:00 p.m. on June 18th.
Ayes: Councilpersons Low-Hogan, Manning, Troy, Maturo
oH
Supervisor Kleiner
Noes: None
RESOLUTION NO. 323 ADJOURNED
Councilwoman Low-Hogan offered the following resolution, which was seconded by Councilwoman Manning and was unanimously adopted:
RESOLVED that the Town Board adjourned at 10:13 p.m.
Ayes: Councilpersons Low-Hogan, Manning, Troy, Maturo
oH
Supervisor Kleiner
Noes: None
____________________________________
Charlotte Madigan, Town Clerk
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STATE OF NEW YORK : COUNTY OF ROCKLAND
TOWN OF ORANGETOWN TOWN BOARD
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – x
In the Matter of the
DRAFT OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL GENERIC STUDY,
To the Town of Orangetown Town Board.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – x
Greenbush Auditorium
Orangeburg, New York
May 18, 2009
B E F O R E:
THOM KLEINER, SUPERVISOR
MARIE MANNING, COUNCILMAN
DENIS TROY, COUNCILMAN(absent)
NANCY LOW-HOGAN COUNCILMAN(absent)
MICHAEL MATURO, COUNCILMAN
CHARLOTTE MADIGAN, CLERK
JOHN EDWARDS, DEPUTY TOWN ATTORNEY
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2 CLERK: Good evening, welcome to the
3 Town of Orangetown, this is the continuation
4 of the May meeting, of the last meeting that
5 we had on May 7th on Thursday, that meeting
6 took place at 12:35 and Councilwoman Manning
7 was present, Councilman Maturo and Supervisor
8 Kleiner. And tonight for a roll call,
9 Councilwoman Manning?
10 MS. MANNING: Here.
11 CLERK: Councilwoman Low-Hogan?
12 MS. LOW-HOGAN: Here.
13 CLERK: Councilman Troy?
14 MR. TROY: Present.
15 CLERK: Councilman Matura?
16 MR. MATURA: Present.
17 CLERK: Supervisor Kleiner?
18 SUPERVISOR: Yes.
19 CLERK: And I would ask you to please
20 all stand so we can recite the pledge of
21 allegiance.
22 (Whereupon the pledge of allegiance was
23 recited.)
24 MR. KLEINER: Good evening, thanks
25 everybody for coming to this continued public
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2 hearing on the redevelopment of a portion of
3 the Rockland Psychiatric Center Site.
4 Outside on the table we left the timeline and
5 also a copy of the Town wide newsletter that
6 we had previously sent a year and half ago,
7 in October 2007, which summarizes some of the
8 details of the predevelopment agreement with
9 Hovanian and also a part of the history of
10 this redevelopment plan. In a couple of
11 minutes, I am going to hand this over to John
12 Saccardi, who is our principal planner for
13 this Generic Environmental Impact Statement
14 process and the rezoning, and he also has a
15 couple of members of his team who were
16 present at the day session that we had a
17 couple of weeks ago, but did not give a
18 presentation. They are going to give a short
19 presentation on some of the environmental
20 issues facing the property tonight, and then
21 we’ll open it up for public comment. I will
22 repeat this before we start, it’s five
23 minutes for public comment orally, but people
24 will have to until June 18 to submit written
25 comments on this Environmental Impact
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2 Statement Process. What I just want to do
3 for a moment, since there has been a lot of
4 discussion since the last public meeting on
5 May 7, and a meeting here tonight, is to
6 briefly go through some of the things that
7 brought us to this point, and I will be brief
8 because many of you are familiar with this.
9 In 1995, there was a Phase One Environmental
10 Impact Statement of the property that
11 generated this document, that was then
12 followed by hearings held by New York State
13 regarding the disposition of this property at
14 Rockland Psych. Knowing that the State was
15 going to put out a request for proposals, the
16 Town of Orangetown commissioned Castler(ph)
17 Associates that developed an option for reuse
18 for the Town Board at that time. I am the
19 only member of the Board that was on there at
20 that time. The Board commissioned a study
21 and that gave the Board some options for
22 reuse which recommended senior and empty nest
23 housing at that time, as well office use.
24 That was followed in 1999 by the Empire State
25 Development Corporation opportunity to bid on
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2 the property. In response to that bid, in
3 response to this document, the winning
4 bidder, the highest bidder, qualified bidder
5 was Heartland Associates which submitted a
6 plan to New York State for 5000 single family
7 homes. As you might expect, those of us on
8 the Town Board at that time and I think
9 before that process was finished Councilman
10 Troy joined the Board, obviously indicated in
11 a variety of ways that the Town Board would
12 not rezone the property to permit for that
13 kind of density in the Town of Orangetown and
14 the adjoining hamlets of Blauvelt and
15 Orangetown.
16 Next was the Phase Two report for the
17 site, the Environmental Review Process. It
18 came out in August of 2002 which indicated
19 that the remediation and demolition of the
20 vacant buildings on the site would cost
21 somewhere in the range of about, at that time
22 about 15 million dollars. Recognizing that
23 the Town Board did not want to entertain the
24 kind of the development that was submitted to
25 the State, those of us on the Board at that
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2 time put this out for, indicated to the State
3 that we wished to purchase the property, and
4 had a referendum in November of 2002 which
5 passed, to permit the Town Board to purchase
6 the site including the Broad Acres Golf
7 Course for approximately $5.95 million
8 dollars for the purpose of preserving open
9 space and to allow the Town to control its
10 own destiny in terms of the redevelopment of
11 the property, while still trying to seek the
12 highest economic return, recognizing that the
13 property was being taken off the tax roles in
14 the Pearl River School District. We
15 previously, the State previously paid several
16 hundred thousand dollars to the district, and
17 the goal of the Board then and now is to
18 recoup as much as that money as possible.
19 That was then followed in the January
20 2003 after a favorable referendum vote by the
21 negotiation with the State whereby we did
22 purchase the land about 348 acres for $6
23 million. Agreeing to preserve as part of
24 that arrangement 216 areas for municipal
25 recreational use. We then began applying for
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2 the redevelopment of the site and in April of
3 2004, we, in conjunction with our planner,
4 came out with the redevelopment plan for
5 Rockland Psychiatric Center Site and began to
6 plan for and hopefully promote a number of
7 uses particularly low development or I should
8 say low impact research and development uses.
9 Following those recommendations, we put out a
10 request for a proposal, for a request for
11 qualification. In the end of, middle of 2004
12 which, among other things, encouraged low
13 impact economic development, what we received
14 were 11 proposals at that time. None of
15 which included a significant commercial
16 component, but recognizing we needed to
17 present a redevelopment plan to the Town, we
18 proceeded to interview nine of those
19 potential applicants and recommend a list of
20 five to proceed with. We then issued a
21 request, a request for a proposal for the
22 site in September of 2005, indicating the
23 acceptable uses for the site. Each of the
24 five developers consistent with what the
25 request for the qualifications indicated,
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2 proposed, submitted proposals for senior
3 housing active adult housing, each of the
4 five did that. They did not have what we
5 originally wanted which was the office and
6 commercial proposals. We then began an
7 interview and evaluation process. We formed
8 a Citizen Community Advisory Committee which
9 had representatives from the community to
10 assist us in evaluating the proposals. And
11 then in October of 2006, we announced that K.
12 Hovanian was the preferred developer and
13 began to negotiate a predevelopment
14 agreement. That was followed as is
15 summarized in the community news bulletin,
16 that each of the Town residents received in
17 October ’07, of the plan to develop on 80
18 acres of the RPC property, primarily for
19 active adult housing, consisting of 185 age
20 restricted townhouses, 293 age restricted
21 condominiums, 32 age restricted single
22 families homes, and 32 active adult
23 affordable units below market units. We also
24 as part of the arrangement with Hovanian,
25 they agreed to replace the housing that we
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2 had provided for the fire and emergency
3 service workers on Blaisdell Road with 20 new
4 affordable housing units for volunteers, and
5 finally 12 single family homes that are not
6 age restricted which would take their place
7 only on Blaisdell. That agreement would not
8 only compel K. Hovanian to be responsible for
9 the payment for this Draft Generic
10 Environmental Impact Statement, the process
11 we are in now, but also to be fully
12 responsible for the remediation and
13 demolition of the vacant buildings on the
14 site, the reconfiguration of the Broad Acres
15 Golf course, and if the matter does go to
16 closing, we are only now in predevelopment
17 agreement, there has been no contract signed
18 with K. Hovanian, but at closing they would
19 pay us 24 million dollars for the right to
20 develop the property.
21 The Town Board’s intent then, the
22 previous Town Board and this Town Board’s
23 intent now is not to vary from those units
24 that are age restricted. The zoning that is
25 part of this redevelopment process and this
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2 public hearing clearly provides for the age
3 restricted units and approximately the amount
4 of the planned adult community units, the
5 senior units in other parts of Town.
6 Slightly above the eight units as opposed to
7 about 7 units in other parts. Eight units
8 per acre that’s the density we are talking
9 about for these 80 acres of the RPC property,
10 which leaves aside the area along Lake Tappan
11 which we originally thought was going to be a
12 key area for redevelopment because of the
13 location on the lake, for future open space
14 or in combination with a very significant
15 issue for anybody in this audience who lives
16 on Convent Road or in the surrounding area,
17 which is the redevelopment of the Children’s
18 Psychiatric Center property. That is
19 potentially the most, even including this
20 development we are talking about tonight, the
21 most significant redevelopment or reuse
22 potential for all of us in the Town of
23 Orangetown because of its unique location on
24 Lake Tappan. We have to be extremely careful
25 and vigilant in how we are do that. I have
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2 spoken with the State representatives about
3 that disposition and they are not prepared
4 deal with that yet. But I want to assure
5 each of you, that anything you may have heard
6 about any disposition of that property is
7 premature because the Town, there has been no
8 plan for its redevelopment. This will be
9 none until the Town is fully engaged in that
10 process for the development as I just went
11 through for this Rockland Psychiatric Center
12 plan for the 80 central acres where the
13 buildings are. The area along the lake is
14 one of the most pristine and important areas
15 for potential reuse which includes open space
16 in the Town. They’ll be a full public
17 process with this and future Boards for its
18 disposition too. But for these 80 acres, the
19 numbers of townhouses and single condos that
20 I just read are essentially what is reflected
21 for us to explore in the predevelopment
22 agreement, and then for Hovanian to go to the
23 Planning Board and the Planning Board to take
24 a look at that as well in the site plan
25 review process. So that the total number of
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2 units which in the negotiations was a
3 function of give and take that allowed us to
4 recapture the money, not only in annual tax
5 ratables but in money that the Town and the
6 school district have need to recover now, and
7 into the future, was a result of that
8 negotiation over the past number of years.
9 But that total number of units is subject to
10 adjustment through the SEQRA process as well
11 as through the site plan review process.
12 Finally, since that predevelopment
13 agreement was signed, with the preparation of
14 survey and wetlands mapping and the draft
15 zoning language, we held hearings on this
16 DGEIS document. The South Orangetown Little
17 League had their opening on the new
18 recreational fields, and has since been
19 joined by the soccer fields across Old
20 Orangeburg Road. We finished final scoping
21 or we adopted final scoping in June of 2008
22 for the redevelopment of 78 total acres, and
23 we are now are in the second part of the
24 public hearing of the review of the Draft
25 Generic Environmental Impact Statement.
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2 We’ll take, as I indicated, public comment
3 tonight, be assured anyone that who does not
4 get to complete their statement will have the
5 opportunity to do so in written form that
6 will be fully considered by the Town and
7 Development Team. I appreciate your
8 attention while I just summarized how we got
9 to this point. I want to hand it over to Mr.
10 Saccardi to take us from here.
11 MR. SACCARDI: Thank you, Supervisor
12 Kleiner, members of the Town Board, members
13 of the audience, my name is John Saccardi. I
14 am a principle of the firm of Saccardi and
15 Schiff. Our headquarters are in White Plains
16 across the river, and we are the principle
17 authors of the Environmental Impact Statement
18 that we will be discussing tonight and
19 looking for your specific input. As
20 Supervisor mentioned, this is a Draft
21 Environmental Impact Statement, it’s a Draft
22 Generic Environmental Impact Statement. It’s
23 an important concept. The Draft
24 Environmental Impact Statement presents
25 detailed studies of the items that were
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2 scoped by the Town. Tom mentioned the
3 scoping sessions, that was the table of the
4 contents that was considered and then adopted
5 by the Town Board. It listed the studies
6 that we are required to undertake. We’ll
7 highlight a few of them that are particularly
8 important for your consideration tonight.
9 Secondly, the word generic, this is
10 generic, even though the book is thick and
11 the studies are detailed, it’s generic
12 because it’s designed to provide enough
13 information for the Town Board to consider a
14 proposed action which is the new zoning
15 district, which is the mapping of the zoning
16 district, and a conceptual plan for the
17 property. The detailed plans for the
18 property will be subject to the site plan
19 approval by the Planning Board, and the
20 Planning Board will be conducting
21 supplemental environmental reviews dealing
22 with the details. The Town Board is dealing
23 with the Generic and the Planning Board in
24 due course will be dealing with the site
25 specific, assuming the project moves ahead as
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2 we are talking tonight. The DEIS was
3 completed by my firm with the assistance of
4 four, five additional environmental
5 consulting firms. With me tonight is Steve
6 Grogg from McClaren Engineering, they are the
7 civil engineers on the project. Michael
8 O’Rourke from Adler Consulting. They are the
9 traffic engineers on the project, and you
10 will hear from both Steve and Michael. Jill
11 Gallant and Jonathan Martin from my office.
12 You will hear from Jonathan about one of the
13 aspects of the study that he worked on. We
14 also have an archeologist, a wetlands expert
15 and air quality expert rounding out our team.
16 And the DGEIS, for those of you who had a
17 chance to look at it, it’s a large document
18 but it’s available on the web site and
19 hopefully you will read parts of it that you
20 are interested in. It’s addressing a whole
21 series of issues; land use in zoning, natural
22 features, community facilities and services,
23 taxes, the history of the buildings on the
24 site. A number of the alternatives to this
25 proposed action, remember the proposed action
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2 is the new zoning district, the mapping of
3 that zoning, and the conceptual master plan
4 for the development of the site. Looking at
5 alternatives to those developments in terms
6 of different approaches for zoning, different
7 uses that could be considered on the site.
8 But what we thought we would do tonight is
9 present for you in short order, three aspects
10 of the DEIS, so you can have specifics that
11 you might want to consider with your remarks
12 tonight. First, Steve Grogg will talk about
13 some of the engineering aspects, and then
14 Michael O’Rourke will talk about the traffic
15 issues that I think are particularly
16 important, and Jonathan Martin will talk
17 about fiscal issues particularly the taxes
18 that can be generated from this development.
19 Before Steve comes up, let me talk for a
20 minute about the next step, as Thom
21 mentioned, the comment period on the DGEIS,
22 on this document, runs for 30 days. The
23 comment period runs until June 18. What
24 SEQRA prescribes is a comment period runs a
25 minimum of 10 days. The Town has decided the
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2 comment period should be 30 days. What we do
3 after we get comments, both verbal comments
4 that will be transcribed, and any written
5 comments, is we’ll prepare a final Generic
6 Environmental Impact Statement. By final it
7 doesn’t mean the process is over, it means
8 those are the responses to your specific
9 comments, and it will be provided for the
10 Town Board and for the public in writing.
11 They’ll also be the responses to any comments
12 we get from outside agencies, the County
13 agencies, New York State Department of
14 Environmental Conservation, any other
15 agencies that will comment on this
16 Environmental Impact Statement. All of those
17 issues, yours and theirs, will be responded
18 to in a Final Environmental Impact Statement
19 that will run through a process of review and
20 acceptance by the Town Board similar to what
21 we did on the Draft Environmental Impact
22 Statement. After that’s considered and made
23 public, they’ll be an Environmental Finding
24 Statement which draws the conclusions of this
25 process. Conclusions that the process was
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2 handled properly, and I assure you it has
3 been handle properly, and that all of the
4 issues are properly addressed, all the issues
5 are properly vetted, and the Town Board can
6 then start to draw conclusions about what to
7 do with this property and what to do about
8 the zoning.
9 The last comment of course is one that
10 is important, that this hearing is both on
11 the proposed zoning and on the Draft
12 Environmental Impact Statement. Your
13 comments on either of those are very
14 important to us as we move from the draft to
15 the Final Environmental Impact Statement.
16 With that I would like to introduce Steve
17 Grogg from McClaren Engineering who will
18 highlight some of the engineering statements
19 that he focused on.
20 MR. GROGG: Good evening, Steven Grogg,
21 McClaren Engineering, as John said McClaren
22 was responsible for the civil engineering
23 portions of the project that include review
24 of the drainage, assisting in the natural
25 features section with respect to slopes and
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2 disturbance, the utilities and also the
3 construction impacts. As John said, this
4 project which is an 80 acre site is in two
5 components. There is a southern piece which
6 is down off of Blaisdell in Old Orangeburg
7 Road and the main parcel which is to the
8 north. To try to give a context of the
9 disturbance, the southern parcel will disturb
10 approximately 8.1 acres and then the northern
11 about 64 acres, and in addition the
12 redevelopment of the Broad Acres Golf Course
13 will disturb approximately 35 acres. As
14 everyone is aware this site is heavily
15 developed with the existing buildings that
16 are on the psych center and in that, the
17 proposed development, while it does cover a
18 large area, will only increase the total
19 impervious area by approximately 8 acres in
20 the northern development and 1.9 acres in the
21 southern development. And this is after the
22 demolition of all of the existing buildings
23 and then we replace it with the roads, the
24 buildings and sidewalks that are shown on the
25 site plan. What we did in the Generic
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2 Environmental Impact Statement is to look at
3 the existing drainage conditions as they
4 exist on the site, and then also looked at
5 the proposed development and determined the
6 fundamental requirements that will be needed
7 for storm water and water quality measures to
8 meet the requirements of the Town and New
9 York State DEC regulation. And to do this,
10 this will require the construction of the
11 detention basin, water quality basins and
12 filters, and plus as the site plan evolves
13 through the Planning Board process, the
14 potential use of alternate treatments such
15 pervious pavement, possibly some green roots
16 and other things to mitigate the increase in
17 the pervious area to the site.
18 Also, as many of the members of the
19 public and in the scoping documents and as
20 Mr. Kleiner also said, this site even though
21 we are not directly adjacent to Lake Tappan,
22 the runoff from the development will, from
23 the developed portion, go towards Lake
24 Tappan, and recognizing that, what we
25 included in providing suggestions within the
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2 Generic Draft of the Generic Impact
3 Environmental Statement are additional
4 measures that can be implemented by the Town
5 to further protect the water quality of the
6 Lake Tappan over and above what is required
7 by the Town and the New York State DEC
8 regulations. Some of these include are
9 really maintenance issues, but in a
10 development which in this case will probably
11 have a homeowner’s association because the
12 roads will be private. It’s important that
13 measures be implemented for the long term
14 maintenance and monitoring of the storm water
15 facilities, street cleaning and inlet
16 cleaning which is very important. Also, the
17 design of the retention basin we are
18 suggesting should encourage basins with
19 larger permanent pools, meaning standing
20 water because those type of basins provide a
21 much better filtering of storm water in water
22 quality standards.
23 Also, what’s important is with the golf
24 course, which will be a Town facility, is the
25 implementation of an integrated pest
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2 management system or program. That’s a
3 program by which it controls the use of the
4 pesticides and herbicides for the golf
5 course. It’s a program that looks at when
6 the applications are made, how the
7 applications are made and really provides a
8 very good control. Also, within the
9 development itself, there is an important
10 need to educate the residents on good
11 integrated pest management practices, and
12 also I think there is an opportunity here
13 since much of the open space within the
14 development will be again probably managed by
15 a homeowner’s association, that an integrated
16 pest management system of that open space
17 should be used.
18 With respect to the utilities, we have
19 looked at the water, sewer, gas, electric and
20 communication. The DGEIS notes what the
21 existing facilities on the sites are. We
22 outlined what the potential impact due to new
23 loading is and the mitigation measures that
24 are required. Two or three important issues
25 that are highlighted in the documents, is the
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2 sewer and one of the key issues that the Town
3 will have to review as they move through the
4 process is that a new sewer pump station will
5 be required on the RPC property, and that
6 will require not only the coordination with
7 development and payment and implementation of
8 that facility, but also coordination with RPC
9 on the joint use or of the replacement of
10 their facility. The other important thing
11 that is really is in the long-term
12 development, and many of these issues will
13 work themselves out as they go through site
14 plan approval, is the coordination on the
15 property of the existing utilities for the
16 RPC site that will have to remain.
17 Interspersed throughout the property is the
18 infrastructure for the RPC. Some of those
19 utilities do go through the proposed
20 development parcel, and will require, be
21 required to either be maintained or relocated
22 as a project moves forward.
23 As I mentioned the other item, which we
24 provided input on is the construction. In
25 the document there is a section that talks
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2 about construction impacts and as again Mr.
3 Kleiner noted, one of the very important
4 issues is the remediation of the
5 environmental conditions of the existing
6 buildings. Most of these will be taken care
7 of as part of the demolition which includes
8 asbestos in the buildings, and soil adjacent
9 to the buildings. This is key in the phasing
10 of the project. Also, the demolition of the
11 buildings and one of the suggestions is for
12 reuse to the extent practical of existing
13 materials. Many of the buildings are
14 concrete. Potentially crushing that
15 concrete, reusing it on site, not only will
16 allow for less import of material for the
17 road bed and fill but also will reduce the
18 trucking off site because of not having as
19 much demolition debris to dispose of.
20 Construction access which we know is an issue
21 to the local community, as stated in the
22 document is suggested that it be limited to
23 Veteran’s Memorial Highway so that no
24 construction access for trucks is through
25 local streets. Noise, again we provide
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2 recommendations in there for mitigation by
3 implementing best technology for the
4 reduction of emissions and noise of
5 construction vehicles, and erosion and
6 sediment control, which is not only is
7 required in the construction phasing but also
8 as part of the storm water and New York DEC
9 requirements.
10 And the last thing I would like to
11 discuss briefly is in the alternate section,
12 we addressed an alternate alignment of Third
13 Avenue. Third Avenue, as Michael O’Rourke
14 will discuss further, will be one of the main
15 accesses into the site from the south, and we
16 provided alternatives for relocation of Third
17 Avenue at the Nathan Klein Institute to move
18 that away from the front door of the facility
19 to eliminate the crossing of the pedestrians
20 that currently occurred from their parking
21 lot to the buildings, and to also then
22 separate the through traffic from their
23 traffic. Also, we included an alternate for
24 a roundabout at the intersection of Third
25 Avenue and Old Orangeburg and Blaisdell Road.
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2 This is for consideration as it would provide
3 a traffic calming measure. The ultimate
4 design of that will require coordination with
5 RPC, the Town in the final site plan because
6 not only are the traffic movements important,
7 there is truck movement coming from the
8 Cook-Chill Facility of RPC that have to be
9 handled through that intersection. Again, we
10 provided those alternatives for
11 consideration. Some of which the detail will
12 have to be worked out going to site plan
13 approval phase, and I will turn it over to
14 Michael O’Rourke for the traffic.
15 MR. O’ROURKE: Thank you Steve, good
16 evening, Supervisor, members of the Town
17 Board, ladies and gentlemen, my name is
18 Michael O’Rourke. I am with Adler
19 Consulting. We performed the traffic impact
20 study as part of the DGEIS to examine the
21 potential traffic impact associated with the
22 rezoning and the conceptual development of
23 Rockland Psychiatric Center. As part of that
24 study, we examined and collected data at 24
25 critical intersections in the area,
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2 predominantly along Veteran’s Memorial
3 Highway, Convent Avenue, Orangeburg Road and
4 then Western Highway. It was summarized and
5 reduced. We then performed intersection pass
6 key analysis to determine the existing
7 conditions of these intersections, these
8 roadways. We then developed the no build
9 traffic volume. This is the traffic volume
10 that is associated with other developments in
11 the area that are anticipated to be completed
12 either just before or before the rezoning and
13 redevelopment of the Rockland Psychiatric
14 Center. That information was developed
15 mainly in association with information
16 already on the Town files, and then we also
17 applied a general background growth to the
18 traffic volume to account for other
19 development and traffic going through the
20 area. For the project itself, the site
21 itself, the trips expected to be generated by
22 the proposed project was calculated using the
23 industry standard, the Seventh Edition of the
24 Trip Generation Manual which is prepared by
25 the Institute of Transportation Engineers.
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2 The origin, destination arrival and departure
3 patters were based on the existing movement
4 in the Town as well as a review of the area
5 roadway network. The site generated trips
6 was then added to the no build traffic volume
7 to determine the build volume, the final
8 build volume associated with this project.
9 For all three conditions, existing, no build,
10 and build, traffic volume, these volumes were
11 analyzed with respect to current and future
12 roadway capacity, reflecting some of the
13 improvements already on line to mitigate the
14 project’s impact.
15 For the roadway sites, for the roadways
16 themselves, generally acceptable traffic
17 operation conditions already exist at many of
18 the intersections within the study area.
19 Some of these operating conditions are
20 expected to deteriorate somewhat by the
21 opening day of the project, that is due at
22 least in part to the traffic expected to be
23 generated by other developments that will
24 become operational before the project. As we
25 discussed before, this is primarily a
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2 residential development. It is anticipated
3 that this project will add approximately 51
4 arriving trips, and 208 departing new trips
5 in the peak a.m. hour, and 211 arriving and
6 111 departing new trips during the p.m. peak
7 hour. It is anticipated that there will be
8 some impacts associated with the
9 redevelopment of the Rockland Psychiatric
10 Center. Many of the mitigation measures that
11 we have proposed address these impacts by
12 optimizing traffic signals, changing the
13 timing. It is also anticipated that
14 constructing turning lanes at the
15 intersection of Veteran’s Memorial Highway
16 with the intersection of Blaisdell Road which
17 we needed, and also there will be a need for
18 a turning lane on the southbound approach of
19 Blaisdell Road. For the intersection of the
20 Veteran’s Memorial Highway with Lester Drive
21 and Edgewood Road, a construction of a left
22 turn lane for the eastbound Veteran’s
23 Memorial Highway approach will provide
24 improved operating conditions and levels of
25 service. With these mitigating measures as
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2 well as other mitigating measures that are
3 discussed in the DGEIS, we anticipate that
4 the traffic associated with the proposed
5 redevelopment of the Psychiatric Center can
6 be accommodated along with the traffic
7 already passing through the area. I now
8 would like to ask Jonathan Martin to continue
9 to talk about the fiscal impacts.
10 MR. MARTIN: Good evening, members of
11 Board, members of the public, my name is
12 Jonathan Martin. I am an associate with
13 Saccardi and Schiff. One of the aspects that
14 I looked in the DGEIS was the fiscal impacts.
15 The fiscal impacts are really concerned about
16 the tax revenues, as well as how they compare
17 to the cost it’s going to take the Town to
18 accommodate proposed new development in terms
19 of providing various kinds of community
20 services. The proposed project is estimated
21 to result in a positive fiscal impact for all
22 taxing jurisdictions that were analyzed, to a
23 total of a surplus of approximately $4.7
24 million in net annual revenues for all taxing
25 jurisdictions and an estimated total of about
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2 $1.9 million in one time fees to the Town of
3 Orangetown, Rockland County and New York
4 State. In addition, the proposed project is
5 estimated to result in the creation of
6 approximately 287 full-time jobs for the
7 project build out period of four years, and
8 this is expected to generate an associated
9 annual wages of approximately $15.8 million
10 dollars per year for four years. Within the
11 fiscal impact analysis, we looked at a fairly
12 wide variety of aspects. There was ten total
13 factors that we looked. This included
14 property taxes, real estate transfer tax,
15 mortgage taxes, school district taxes,
16 proceeds from the sale of the land, sales
17 taxes, building permits and recreational fees
18 that would come as part and parcel of the
19 project; permanent full-time employment as I
20 mentioned, one time construction period
21 impacts, and a per capita analysis was used
22 to estimate the cost that would incur on the
23 Town on an annual basis. For each of these
24 ten elements, we took, I would say an
25 extremely conservative approach on this. I
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2 will mention a few of the highlights, how we
3 went about this. For example, we used
4 current 2009 tax rates to estimate revenues,
5 as well as looked at very carefully and used
6 the 2009 Town budget. So the estimates are
7 as current as we could possibly make them.
8 We also took another measure that was to try
9 to account for potential changes in future
10 market conditions. We assumed a price
11 reduction of 10 percent from the developer’s
12 estimated selling price for these units.
13 Which, if you can imagine, reduced the
14 overall amount of tax revenue by 10 percent.
15 For example, this reduced the estimated
16 selling price of the town homes, the
17 condominiums, 478 units that are proposed
18 from about $558,000 per unit to approximately
19 $502,000 per unit. In addition, to those
20 measures we also looked at other aspects that
21 homeowners might use to reduce their taxes
22 including the State STAR program which is the
23 school tax reduction program, and we
24 accounted for that on all units, which is not
25 likely to be the case by any means, and even
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2 if that were to be the case the school
3 district, the Pearl River School District
4 does get reimbursed for that at the end by
5 the State. We also used a per capita
6 methodology to try to estimate cost. What
7 this does, it assumes every new person coming
8 into this development is going to cost the
9 Town exactly the same amount that it cost the
10 current residents, and so this is a very
11 common way of trying to estimate costs, but
12 it is a very conservative measure to estimate
13 cost because it assumes there is no available
14 capacity in any of the existing community
15 systems. For example, it estimates that Town
16 Hall, Town Board cost, all of the
17 administrative costs would have to be
18 replicated for the cost for every new person
19 coming in. We know that’s not going to be
20 the case, and so even by using that, again
21 it’s a very conservative measure.
22 Finally, we looked at the 20 volunteer
23 units that are considered to be tax exempt.
24 Even though they are the tax exempt, we
25 included them in the cost that would be
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2 attributed to the Town to provide services.
3 In summary, after looking at all of
4 these measures, looking at them
5 conservatively as I explained, the Town of
6 Orangetown including special districts is
7 expected to receive approximately $1.8
8 million dollars per year in tax revenues,
9 estimated costs of about $529,000.00 for net
10 revenue, surplus every year of approximately
11 $1.3 million dollars. For Rockland County,
12 it ends up being a net tax revenue annually
13 of about $238,000.00 and for the Pearl River
14 School District estimated revenue is expected
15 to be $3.3 million. Costs are going to be
16 approximately to $217,000.00 because of the
17 senior character of the project is expected
18 that there will be approximately 15 new
19 students. That’s why the cost is so low.
20 This in turn produces the net revenue of
21 approximately $3.1 million dollars annually
22 for the Pearl River School District. So in
23 total, for the Town of Orangetown there is
24 approximately $4.6 million dollars annually
25 in annual tax revenues. At this point, I
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2 would like to turn it back over to Supervisor
3 Kleiner.
4 MR. KLEINER: Thank you, very much each
5 of you for your presentations. The way we
6 are going to proceed now there is about 12
7 people who signed up to speak, there is
8 probably more who wish to speak. What we ask
9 is when we have this these types of hearings,
10 those of you who are speaking after some have
11 proceeded you, if your points have been made,
12 you want to refer to them that would be fine,
13 but obviously you can take all five minutes
14 to speak and again for those who might not
15 have been here when I said this earlier, for
16 anyone who wishes to submit comments beyond
17 what you either have time for today or
18 additional comments occur to you in the next
19 month, you have until June 18th to submit
20 written comments to us. We’ll forward them
21 to the planning team for their consideration
22 and then they report back to us, of course
23 which will be shared with the general public.
24 Finally, the nature of this proceeding is for
25 you to be able to, not in so much to tell us
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2 about it, obviously we are all here, but to
3 respond to the DGEIS because as part of the
4 legal SEQRA process there is a responsibility
5 for the planners on behalf of the Town to
6 respond back and answer each of the
7 questions, indicate where mitigation is
8 necessary for traffic or any other area, and
9 then the Town Board proceeds from there.
10 Because of that, we are going to try to avoid
11 going back and forth and specifically
12 answering questions and getting into a
13 dialogue tonight, that’s really not the
14 purpose. Except if there is any information
15 that we believe factually is incorrect on an
16 important matter we’ll try, either I or John
17 Edwards, the Town Attorney or John Saccardi,
18 the planner will say, it’s not X, it’s really
19 Y in terms of number of units or dollars or
20 anything like that. Otherwise the intent is
21 just to hear your comments to take those into
22 account in our review process, and get back
23 to you with a Final Environmental Impact
24 Statement that reflects those comments and
25 responses and mitigations where necessary to
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2 proceed with this process, with that the
3 first speaker is Nancy Antonucci. Let me get
4 this clock to work.
5 MS. ANTONUCCI: Good evening, my name
6 is Nancy Antonucci. I am a resident of
7 Swannekin Road in Blauvelt for 40 years and
8 am part of the group that is key
9 communicators that represent five streets in
10 Blauvelt; Prospect Road, Riverside Terrace,
11 Cobble Place, Buttonwood Place and Swannekin
12 Road. We have come before you in the past
13 expressing concerns regarding the traffic
14 issues in our area, and we are here once more
15 in light of the future development of the
16 Rockland Psych property, and its potential
17 impact on our neighborhood. Our group has
18 been working closely these past 13 months
19 with the Traffic Advisory Board to clarify
20 issues and develop several possible plans to
21 improve the physical needs of our streets and
22 the Traffic Advisory Board has been extremely
23 helpful. I would like to make a few remarks
24 and just to ask you one or two questions, and
25 then to present a petition which addresses
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2 some recommendations by the firm of Saccardi
3 and Schiff as well Adler Consulting. As
4 stated in the DGEIS, the peak traffic hours
5 are noted to be eight to nine and five to
6 six. For our area and our needs,
7 construction workers work between the hours
8 usually of seven to three or seven to four.
9 They are not working between eight to nine
10 and five to six, and you mentioned a number
11 of 287 workers. Anyone traveling south on
12 the Palisades Parkway or Thruway onto the
13 Palisades Parkway South getting off at Exit 7
14 according to the GPS system will be using the
15 Riverside Terrace which is one of our five
16 streets. Also by your own admission, Section
17 3 J-11 regarding Swannekin and Convent Road,
18 additional monitoring of the intersection is
19 recommended. We would like to know if there
20 are any plans in place. On page 19 in the
21 same report, regarding the center yellow
22 line, it’s recommended to ease traffic. I
23 was on the phone with the DOT with Mr. Joe
24 Hurley, he is the traffic and safety
25 engineer, and on the web site for the DOT, a
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2 single yellow line just separates two way
3 traffic, and in no way is going to help us
4 with our present and future situation. I
5 want to mention a few things we have become
6 aware of. STEJ is developing the property.
7 They have Planning Board approval. They are
8 waiting for funds. Also, Orangeburg Road is
9 on the planning block to be replaced, the
10 bridge over Orangeburg Road, and they are
11 waiting for stimulus money. This is going to
12 be addressed a little further by Pat Boulay.
13 It would be inconceivable for all these
14 projects to come together at the same time.
15 Where would all of the construction vehicles
16 go? Where would all of the traffic go? And
17 unfortunately I am afraid it’s going to come
18 on our side of the neighborhood. I would
19 like to inform the Board that we will have
20 something in writing by June 18th. We
21 request that we be included in any
22 discussions, plans etc., affecting our five
23 streets. I would like to present this
24 petition. The one other thing that was in
25 the DGEIS was an all way stop sign on
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2 Swannekin and Convent Road. In looking at
3 lay of the land, and in particular one or two
4 driveways and again Mrs. Boulay will address
5 this, because of the number of cars that will
6 be traveling on Convent Road our residents
7 will be unable to get out of their driveway,
8 no matter where those stop signs are placed,
9 if that’s the plan. I would like to read our
10 petition and present it to the Board. We,
11 the undersigned, by the way we had a meeting,
12 we met as a neighborhood last week. We are
13 meeting again to draft a plan, and we hope
14 you approve our plan. We, the undersigned,
15 are the residents on and abutting Swannekin
16 Road in Blauvelt. We respectfully request
17 that the Orangetown Town Board give no
18 consideration to the traffic comment proposal
19 set forth by the firm of Saccardi and Schiff.
20 This proposal is found in the DGEIS, Volume
21 One, Section 3J, page 19, paragraph 2. This
22 plan does not address the safety and traffic
23 concerns of our neighborhood. A proposal
24 from the residents will be forthcoming. I
25 think I have a few seconds.
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2 MR. KLEINER: I think we have a fully
3 functioning clock, I will indicate when it’s
4 30 seconds.
5 MS. ANTONUCCI: Okay, I want to thank
6 you for your time and attention, but honestly
7 in sitting here and listening to the three
8 reports that were given, they have actually
9 raised more questions in my mind, more
10 concerns about what’s going to happen because
11 I am an owner of a home of 55 or over in
12 South Jersey. Implications, you have strains
13 on the EMS service — that’s 30 seconds?
14 Thank you very much.
15 MR. KLEINER: (Clock beeping) now it’s
16 over.
17 MS. ANTONUCCI: Now it’s up, thank you,
18 very much.
19 MR. KLEINER: Thank you, next is Pat
20 Boulay.
21 MS. BOULAY: My name is Pat Boulay, I
22 live on 442 Convent Road in Blauvelt. The
23 traffic impact study highlights the problems
24 we who live on Convent Road currently have
25 and the potential problems this project will
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2 create. This study states it should be noted
3 that two way traffic volumes along the
4 eastern portion of the Convent Road range
5 between 300 per hour to 400 vehicles per hour
6 during the high peak travel time now. How
7 then can anyone predict with a potential
8 increase that traffic would be generated by
9 an additional 8 to 900 cars and two entrances
10 that are not there now. Also identified in
11 the study as two highly potential accident
12 locations intersecting Convent Road is
13 Parkway Drive and Swannekin. A suggestion to
14 making them both a four way stop to make them
15 safer is proposed. Those of you not familiar
16 with my situation, my driveway is just before
17 the intersection of Convent and Swannekin
18 Road. Creating a four way stop there would
19 have the traffic literally blocking my
20 driveway, not acceptable. While the site
21 could be under construction for the next 10
22 to 12 years depending on the market. It is
23 the initial clearing and demolition of this
24 property I would like to discuss. Any
25 adverse impacts that can be not avoided,
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2 Section 4 page 9, a construction traffic
3 control management plan will be required to
4 manage construction traffic. The plan will
5 address the on site circulation of the
6 traffic to minimize conflicts with existing
7 RPC operation. The plan will also provide
8 means to direct the construction traffic to
9 Veteran’s Memorial Highway and to avoid all
10 local roads. The plan will include control
11 of deliveries and also the workers arriving
12 and departing on the site. My questions are
13 these, who will be devising the plan, who
14 will be implementing that plans, and who will
15 enforce it. My neighbors and I have been
16 recently advised that as soon as the money
17 becomes available the bridge on Orangeburg
18 Road going over the railroad tracks will be
19 replaced. There was no mention of that
20 impact in this study. Will that bridge be
21 closed completely? If the Orangeburg Road
22 access to 303 is closed which way will these
23 trucks carrying the demolition debris, some
24 containing hazardous material, be directed
25 off of this site. I am a resident who was on
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2 the fence when the proposed development was
3 announced. After reading this impact study I
4 am no longer on that fence. While I would
5 like to see the site cleaned up and
6 developed, I do not believe this RPC property
7 should be rezoned for a community of this
8 size, thank you.
9 THE COURT: Next is Paul Valentine.
10 MR. VALENTINE: Good evening, my name
11 is Paul Valentine. I live at 20 Buttonwood
12 Place in Blauvelt. My house and home and the
13 life I enjoy will be directly affected by
14 this overdevelopment that is planned. I have
15 several questions and concerns. One of my
16 first questions is where are we going to go
17 get the seniors to fill up these 600 homes.
18 They are not going to come locally, because
19 nobody locally can afford a half million
20 dollar town home. If we are importing
21 seniors what happens to the tax revenues that
22 are supposedly generated when all of these
23 seniors end up on Medicaid and you are told,
24 constantly told by the County that the
25 largest part of our County taxes are due to
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2 the increased cost and mandates associated
3 with Medicaid and Medicare. If I understood
4 the gentleman right, they are going to tear
5 down some of these contaminated buildings,
6 grind up the material and bury it in the
7 earth. I could have sworn that’s what I
8 heard him say. You know, we were told the
9 air around 911 was safe, and you see what
10 happened there. I have great concerns if
11 they plan on grinding up those buildings and
12 putting it back into the earth right near a
13 water supply. I am concerned that in 2002 I
14 was sold a bill of goods. I was told we
15 would have a new Central Park located in the
16 center of Orangetown, instead we got high
17 density housing. Who is going to guarantee
18 me that this housing is going to stay a
19 senior development. What kind of guarantee
20 in writing can we get that after they
21 purchase the property, if they happen to go
22 bankrupt or something other, and the zoning
23 is changed, that we won’t have a religious
24 organization or just a standard housing put
25 in that same thing that would have a large
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2 adverse effect on our community. How was it
3 so important to the Town to save Cowboy
4 Fields as open space and to save 20 something
5 acres on the top of Clausland Mountain, where
6 we spent millions of dollars to save that
7 property, but you have no problem sticking
8 high density housing in my backyard. Why
9 can’t we keep this as open space? It seems
10 to be that Pearl River School District is
11 going to get any taxes generated from this,
12 but the area in Blauvelt and all around our
13 middle schools are going to be getting the
14 traffic to deal with. All we get is all the
15 negative, and all they get is all the
16 positives, I have a problem with that also.
17 Thom, you know my feelings on this, I think
18 this development is wrong for the community.
19 I think we should be looking at something
20 more, to have a Blauvelt Town Center, that
21 some of those buildings in RPC should be
22 saved. I remember many of the politicians in
23 this room walking through those buildings,
24 talking about how they should be saved, and
25 the murals that are on the walls. In fact
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2 they are on web sites saying how great they
3 are and should be saved, but they are the
4 first buildings to be demolished in this
5 reconstruction. I think we ought to really
6 slow down and rethink about this, and I don’t
7 understand why in 2002 I was able to vote for
8 my own Central Park, but in 2009 I can’t vote
9 on what happens with the property. The
10 property I own and I paid for. I think it
11 should be on the ballot in November.
12 MR. KLEINER: Thank you, I just want to
13 clarify one thing, so we don’t get a bad
14 rumor started. I think on the issue of the
15 demolition, the remediation has to be
16 accomplished first. Principally we are
17 talking about exclusively about lead and
18 asbestos, and before anything is done with
19 those buildings, it has to be taken out
20 first, so there is nothing left on site of
21 that nature. Just finally again, I said
22 earlier we are not going to go back and forth
23 on public policy issues. I think I just want
24 to emphasize one thing that is important
25 particularly for those of us who have been on
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2 here for while, and that is one of the
3 reasons we took the steps to buy the property
4 from the State was to be able to develop it
5 in a way that would reflect the zoning that
6 we create as part of this process. Which is
7 currently about the same as PAC zoning, 7 to
8 8 an acre for density purposes, and actually
9 to avoid certain uses that we were concerned
10 regardless of what those uses were. If we
11 said to the State, no we are not interested
12 in this, and the State had the responsibility
13 for putting it back out for their own bids,
14 having said that, there is a lot of area we
15 can discuss of what is appropriate, but I
16 think we actually, all this Board and the
17 previous Board, and the community was on the
18 same page, not having the state determine our
19 own destiny for this project. The next one
20 is Gail Raffaele.
21 MS. RAFFAELE: My name is Gail
22 Raffaele, as you know I am opposed to this
23 project. I would like to point out, we have
24 volunteer firemen and a volunteer ambulance
25 corp. Our volunteer firemen is hard pressed
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2 to cover fires during the day. In fact
3 Tappan, they cover Orangeburg on many
4 occasions. Development of this magnitude is
5 ultimately going to cost us and force us to
6 have paid firemen, have paid ambulance,
7 paramedics in addition to what we have, and
8 there is going to be no benefit to the
9 existing community for this project. Paul
10 pointed out that we are taking on the
11 responsibility to give somebody from another
12 area a better quality of life. Well, you
13 know you guys work for us, and it’s our
14 quality of live that you have to concern
15 yourself, not planting a business facility
16 for somebody else. I think now I can
17 understand why the sewer construction went
18 from 22 million to 46 million. Perhaps it
19 has something to do with RPC that we weren’t
20 told way back when. We all know that the RPC
21 line goes through Lester Drive force main
22 that’s falling apart. It’s been falling
23 apart for years, and nobody did anything
24 about it. That’s costing me, it’s not
25 costing the new owners in this development.
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2 So I think that the $5.9 million dollars we
3 spent for this parcel should be as a benefit
4 to us, and we should leave it fallow. We
5 should create that Central Park that Dennis
6 you talked about way back when, and we should
7 have been in this whole deal. We put a ton
8 of money in this project and have gotten
9 nothing back from Hovanian to date. On a
10 February 23rd meeting you said they had $888
11 million dollars in cash. Well, why are they
12 being treated differently than other
13 developers in this Town. Let them buy the
14 property and roll the dice as to what they
15 are going to do with it. You changed the
16 rules. This is coddling a developer to get
17 something that this community doesn’t want.
18 So you are not representing us. Everything
19 that you are doing is going to cost us money
20 down the road. Everything that you are
21 doing, and as Paul mentioned, those of us who
22 are in South Orangetown or the Nyack School
23 District are getting no benefit from this,
24 because the only one that appears to be
25 benefiting is the Pearl River School
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2 District. However, there is not a market for
3 this kind of facility to date. In 2002 you
4 may have been on the right track. This is
5 seven years later, you are on the wrong track
6 now. You can see just by the developer who
7 is coming here on site, they can’t build a
8 project because of the economic times we are
9 in. We don’t need this project to bring more
10 population into this Town. It’s going to be
11 make more demands on everything. The other
12 thing you talked about Western Highway and
13 you talked about Lester Drive, and you talked
14 about Convent Road to satisfy those people,
15 but you are going send all of those trucks
16 out onto 303, which is already so dangerous
17 that you are mandating or begged the State to
18 make improvements. So that’s going to be
19 have a negative effect on the community along
20 303. They didn’t even mention 303 and the
21 impact it’s going to have there. I can’t get
22 out on to 303 now to do shopping when I want
23 to go places. There isn’t even a supermarket
24 for that facility that you are building. You
25 try to go to the Shop Rite in Pearl River and
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2 find a parking space. I have to go shopping
3 in New Jersey or West Nyack because we only
4 have the Shop Rite in Pearl River, and it
5 can’t accommodate Orangetown in it’s total
6 now. So you are adding a thousand more
7 people, where the hell are they going to go?
8 MR. KLEINER: Thank you, again on a
9 point that was raised at the very beginning,
10 and this I think will be covered in this
11 documents. Our understanding of the sewer
12 issue is that there is no particular impact
13 on the overall sewer infrastructure
14 redevelopment plan that the Board previously
15 authorized. We are extremely limited in
16 development because of the nature of the
17 residential development. That’s covered in
18 this DGEIS document, and that will be
19 answered when Ms. Raffaele’s comments are
20 responded to in the next document. Just a
21 quick point, with regard to the seniors that
22 was raised and also with the previous
23 speaker, we have spoken about this before,
24 this is a double edged sword with regard to
25 where people are coming from in this
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2 development.
3 AUDIENCE VOICE: It’s not debate.
4 AUDIENCE VOICE: Let him speak.
5 MR. KLEINER: And if all of the people
6 came from South Orangetown School District or
7 the Pearl River School District, we
8 collectively would not favor that because of
9 the impact on the school district. If it’s a
10 mix, some in the community or some outside of
11 the community, the direct impact on the
12 school district is lessened. This is another
13 issue that will be covered in the DEGIS
14 response. Next is Allan Ryff.
15 MR. RYFF: Alan Ryff, Tappan, this
16 really is not a Blauvelt issue. It’s not an
17 Orangeburg issue. It’s an Orangetown issue,
18 because what we are talking about is the
19 urbanization of Orangetown. Harry Truman
20 said there’s nothing new in this world but
21 the history we don’t remember. I do remember
22 history. When that 2002 proposition was put
23 on the ballot, the people of Orangetown was
24 told, as Paul pointed out, this was going to
25 be passive land and recreational use, and
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2 this was to be Orangetown’s Central Park. It
3 was portrayed in Our Town, in the Journal
4 News, check the record. Our political
5 leaders also told us this was not going to be
6 for senior housing or commercial development.
7 Again, that’s the way it was portrayed to the
8 public. I, for one, thought I was voting for
9 stewardship, whereby we would take this open
10 space and hand it down to the next
11 generation. It wasn’t for multi-family
12 housing. We don’t need high density
13 multi-family housing in Orangetown. It will
14 impact not only on taxes, despite this
15 wonderful model we were presented with
16 tonight. Taxes have never gone down. They
17 don’t go back down, let’s be realistic. What
18 we have to do is reign in spending. We have
19 to be prudent in how we will spend our money.
20 It’s also going to impact as the other
21 speakers said, on our infrastructure.
22 People, many people, are suffering in this
23 Town right now. This is not to their
24 advantage. Mr. Maturo, the reason why you
25 are sitting there is because you represented
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2 change. People liked what you had to say.
3 This is not change, and I would urge you not
4 to buy into this. This is a violation of
5 what we were told. A violation of the public
6 trust. Orangetown is not Ramapo and it’s not
7 going to be Williamsburg.
8 MR. KLEINER: Thank you, the next
9 speaker is Eileen Larkin.
10 MS. LARKIN: Good evening, members of
11 the Board, members of the community, I am
12 here to make some comments and one of the
13 things I would like to point out to
14 Supervisor Kleiner starting in January 1,
15 2010 you will not be on that Board, one way
16 or the other, and having left this project to
17 the incoming Board it will be a monumental to
18 them, and I hope they all are willing to take
19 a stand on this project. The current plan
20 allows up to eight units. You spoke before
21 about the maximum number of units, you have
22 eight units, 80 acres. I thought I don’t
23 know if it’s officially rezoned from R-80 to
24 allow for an adult community, but you said
25 this project is allowed eight units per acre
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2 so, 8 times 80 is 640 units. On the proposed
3 numbers, it comes up to 575 units of proposed
4 housing. Now the traffic study said
5 something about that 575 units should at
6 least allow for close to maybe 800 cars,
7 coming and going. If is a viable adult
8 community, people will be coming and going,
9 driving, picking up their grandchildren, what
10 have you, that I am sure is going to allow
11 for 700 cars if not more. The traffic study
12 said something about, the trips they were
13 looking at were 51 arrivals and 51
14 departures. I am always a little sceptical
15 about people who do traffic studies on
16 properties like this. I been around a long
17 time in Palisades, New York, and maybe that
18 would be clarified, with all due respect to
19 your study that you did. The roads that you
20 mentioned are all going to be impacted by the
21 project that are before the land use boards
22 at the moment. I am sure they are included
23 in there, that’s the indoor recreational
24 facility, ARC, The Hollows which is an adult
25 community which has been moth balled. The
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2 adult community in Letchworth has been moth
3 balled. I believe at this time with the
4 economic conditions the way they are, most
5 people you see are losing 40 percent of their
6 salaries. Projects are not coming in and in
7 light of the economy, I guess my question and
8 my concern would be why Hovanian is
9 proceeding with this project in light of the
10 economy, in light of the adult communities
11 that have not come to fruition. When you are
12 talking about numbers, you mentioned a number
13 of $560 some odd thousand dollars. I find
14 that hard to believe because the least
15 expensive unit over at Blue Hollows was
16 starting at 660 and went up to a million
17 dollars. That’s not an adult, for 55 and
18 over adult community. I am more skeptical, I
19 am wondering why Hovanian is proceeding, and
20 I am concerned maybe they have another agenda
21 in mind. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist
22 to say this project is going to be a long way
23 off, let’s get all of the T’s crossed and all
24 the I’s dotted and we’ll get the property and
25 do something else with it. So that’s where I
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2 stand on that one. We are sitting with, how
3 many acres of land? 340 acres of property,
4 and I do say that I would love to see it
5 become a Central Park, but maybe if you do
6 that, you have to take down the buildings and
7 that’s very costly to the residents of
8 Orangetown. We are sitting here with a big
9 elephant in the room, right? Now one of
10 things that the Orangetown doesn’t have, and
11 I said it for many years, we do not have a
12 three stage adult facility, if we are looking
13 at major numbers of people aging out in
14 Rockland County and in Orangetown. To
15 consider perhaps doing a three stage facility
16 for independent living, assisted living, and
17 full care. I know my aunt lived in one down
18 in Caldwell, New Jersey. It was beautiful.
19 She moved in at a certain amount of the
20 money, and that was it for her lifetime. She
21 got wonderful care and she had wonderful new
22 friends and what have you, but I think the
23 concept of the adult community, I for one
24 would prefer to stay in my home. I live it
25 Palisades. The land, the development came,
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2 the development was built in 1954 and I would
3 say it is the most stable community in
4 Orangetown. We have original people of which
5 maybe about 20, and we have children of those
6 original people staying in the community. We
7 are houses, a development of high ranches,
8 not high ranches, ranches and split levels.
9 MR. KLEINER: (Clock beeping) thank you,
10 the time.
11 MS. LARKIN: And I think that at this
12 time most of us want to stay in our homes,
13 but when you start aging out and you need
14 other care, we don’t have it here in
15 Orangetown, and I think maybe that’s another
16 consideration rather than deal with this
17 massive high density. It is not affordable.
18 It’s going to cost the Town of Orangetown
19 millions of dollars with the volunteers and
20 all of our municipal services will have to be
21 increased, that is a fact of life, thank you.
22 MR. KLEINER: Thank you, the next is, I
23 can’t read it, it looks like JBC initials,
24 West Nyack. All right, the next after that
25 is Shauna O’Flynn.
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2 MS. O’FLYNN: Hi, my name is Shauna
3 O’Flynn, I live on Blauvelt Road in Blauvelt.
4 I grew up on Buttonwood and as a child, I was
5 able to ride my bike freely around the
6 streets. As Mrs. Antonnucci mentioned
7 earlier, Riverside, Swannekin, Cobble and
8 Prospect, Buttonwood, those were my roads. I
9 ran around them freely. I played with my
10 friends in the road and ran through the
11 neighborhood. You were careful with the
12 traffic and stuff, but it wasn’t a huge
13 concern. It was always a safe environment
14 for any child to play. Now I reside on
15 Blauvelt Road near the South Orangetown
16 Middle School with my husband and two
17 children, a four year old and a one year old.
18 I visit my parents on Buttonwood at least
19 three or four times per week. On any given
20 day while driving through that neighborhood,
21 I see many clusters of children doing the
22 same thing I did while growing up. How are
23 their lives going to be impacted by the
24 traffic changes? Are they going to be able
25 to do what I did growing up? Are they going
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2 to be able to continue playing the way I did?
3 As I mentioned earlier, I live on Blauvelt
4 Road across from the middle school, as it is
5 now the traffic, it can be heavy where I am.
6 I am sure this development is going to
7 negatively impact my road as well as the
8 above five I mentioned before, the ones Mrs.
9 Antonucci was speaking about. I want my
10 children to have the same freedom that I had
11 growing up. I am also concerned about the
12 land that is owned by the Gaelic Athletic
13 Association, how is this going to affect the
14 fields and families and the development they
15 are planning to promote their Irish culture
16 and heritage because they own a small portion
17 of that property back there. So my concern
18 is for the children and how this is going to
19 affect them.
20 MR. KLEINER: Thank you, Eileen Riley?
21 MS. RILEY: My name is Eileen Riley I
22 live on Blauvelt Road, in Blauvelt also. I
23 am a new resident to Orangetown. I
24 absolutely love Orangetown. It’s the best
25 thing we ever did was move here. I moved
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2 here for my future and the future of my four
3 children. But what I have to say is, if
4 there is going to be 80 acres in my backyard
5 that’s going to be developed for hundreds of
6 the homes, I might as well have stayed in
7 Queens, that’s all I have to say.
8 MR. KLEINER: The next two speakers are
9 Barbara and Joe Cinquemani come up singularly
10 or individually, or together or neither.
11 Okay, next is Alexis Stark.
12 MS. STARK: Good evening, thank you, my
13 name is Alexis Stark. I am currently a
14 resident of Piermont, but I grew up in
15 Tappan. I would like to talk about the
16 zoning issue first. In terms of the zoning
17 cluster or dense development only makes sense
18 in terms of our environment if the
19 development is offset by open space. The
20 RPC-H zone fails to do so. It would allow 8
21 homes per acre without any provision of open
22 space. I believe it is therefore in conflict
23 with the Town comprehensive plan. Not only
24 would the zone change have a negative impact
25 upon this property, it would also set a
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2 dangerous precedent for the rest of RPC
3 property, and for other currently undeveloped
4 properties through Orangetown.
5 And there are a number of issues I have
6 with the DGEIS, in terms of wetlands and
7 water bodies, I don’t believe that the DGEIS
8 adequately addresses the ecological
9 significance of wetlands, and the
10 consequences of disturbing them.
11 Specifically here in Orangetown where we have
12 severe flooding problems and polluted
13 streams. The executive summary only says
14 that .1 area of the wetlands will be lost,
15 but when you look at the full document it’s
16 actually .63 acres of wetlands, and that is
17 an impact here in Orangetown. The flora and
18 fauna area says that no significant decrease
19 in the natural wildlife that has value will
20 result in the proposed development. I would
21 disagree with it. It’s currently an
22 abandoned property and to go from that to 578
23 homes and an additional 9.5 acre of paved
24 surfaces will have an impact on the wildlife
25 habitat. The storm water management, the
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2 DGEIS reads the proposed project will result
3 in a increase of 9.5 acres of impervious
4 areas, potentially increasing storm water run
5 off, and regardless of any engineered
6 solution, this will alter the natural
7 drainage patterns which will impact the
8 environment and the health of our streams and
9 water. In the utility section, the impact of
10 578 new homes on our water resources has not
11 been adequately analyzed due to the extent of
12 current and projected development in Rockland
13 and a lack of resources(unintelligible).
14 Rockland County currently has a projected
15 shortage of potable water that has caused
16 United Water to ask and propose a
17 desalination plant on the Hudson River. This
18 proposed desalination plant cited in a DCEIF
19 as a future site of water development has
20 received a positive declaration from the DEC
21 and is therefore not a done deal. The DGEIS
22 also does not note the impact of the increase
23 of gas and electric will have on our air
24 pollution, on our carbon footprint. In terms
25 of the electric, the impact of the 578 new
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2 homes on our electric power resources is not
3 mentioned, however Orange and Rockland
4 currently claim that we will need at least
5 two more substations in Orangetown to meet
6 current and projected needs. O and R has not
7 been able to locate a site for a substation
8 that has not been met with outrage and
9 protest from the local residents. So I think
10 an increase in the electric is a hardship.
11 And traffic and transportation, I question
12 whether 578 new homes will produce an
13 increase of only 259 peak a.m. trips and 322
14 p.m. trips. People are working later into
15 life, there is no guarantee all of these
16 people are going to retired and just sleeping
17 late. In terms of the air quality, I
18 question the statement that no significant
19 air quality impacts have been identified.
20 Surely the air quality in the immediate area
21 will be impacted by the addition of 1100
22 cars. I also have a whole written section I
23 will submit to you on the mitigation, but
24 since the impact haven’t been fully addressed
25 in my opinion and the mitigation measures are
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2 not existent in this statement, thank you.
3 MR. KLEINER: Thank you, next is Martin
4 Ryan.
5 MR. RYAN: My name is Martin Ryan. I
6 live on Hudson Terrace in Piermont. I have a
7 number of comments to make about the DGEIS.
8 Most of them have been already been covered
9 tonight, I will keep it brief. With
10 reference to the zoning, I believe the
11 document fails to fully assess the impact of
12 the RPC-H zoning on the area. The zoning is
13 not in alignment with the Town’s
14 comprehensive plan, and fails to provide
15 adequate open space to mitigate the extent of
16 the proposal. And the DGEIS also fails to
17 assess the impact of this development on the
18 water resources within Rockland County, and
19 as its been mentioned United Water has plans
20 for a desalination plant and projected growth
21 models within Rockland County. Continued
22 unstainable development without proper
23 accounting for our water resources can not
24 continue. It is this level of thinking that
25 has caused us to make a false assessment that
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2 a new water supply is the answer to all of
3 our problems. Improved planning and
4 development is the answer to our problems.
5 The tax estimates within the documents are
6 based upon a per capita analysis of current
7 spending, and however although the per capita
8 increase is at 2.27 percent based on the
9 population estimates, the percentage increase
10 in household is actually 3.2 percent based on
11 the census at 2000 household level. And many
12 of the costs for services provided are more
13 meaningful when you provide them at a
14 household rather than a capacity basis, and
15 this would increase the cost to $750,000.00
16 as against the $528,000.00 listed in the
17 DGEIS alone. And also the requirement for
18 five new police officers as indicated by the
19 police chief in the DGEIS is likely in and of
20 itself to require significant funding. And
21 there will also be an increase on the burden
22 on the volunteer services and the cost to the
23 community of this increased burden. And I
24 believe the net population of 1.3 million is
25 overestimated, and this project is more
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2 likely to be tax neutral for the Town and
3 there maybe increases for the Pearl River
4 School District but for the Town it’s more
5 likely to be tax neutral. And also the
6 future tax revenues are based on the
7 developer’s price minus ten percent, and this
8 analysis should be done by a qualified
9 appraiser and should be based on the needs
10 for this type of housing. And the
11 developer’s estimate for the units for tax
12 purposes will drop dramatically if and when
13 they remain unsold as happened in other cases
14 in the Town, thank you.
15 MR. KLEINER: Thank you, those are the
16 people who signed up. Mr. Mandel?
17 MR. MANDEL: Good evening, Supervisor
18 Kleiner and the Town Board, for the record I
19 am Michael Mandel, a resident of Pearl River.
20 In connection with the traffic section of the
21 DGIS, I have several comments. The traffic
22 count is conducted on two dates, May 14 and
23 September 10th. Each location is counted on
24 one day only. This does not include the
25 electronic count on the main road. The count
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2 of Convent, Van Wyck, and Van Wyck near Erie
3 do not properly reflect the real vehicular
4 pedestrian traffic as it relates to the South
5 Orangetown Middle School located at 160 Van
6 Wyck Road. Classes begin at 7:35 and end
7 2:20 p.m., the count was taken from 7 to 9:30
8 and from 4 to 6:30. It dismisses some of the
9 morning traffic such as teachers and students
10 arriving early at school, and totally ignores
11 the traffic consisting of passenger vehicles
12 and school buses at dismissal time, as well
13 as numerous children numbering anywhere from
14 20 to 40 who walk along Van Wyck at dismissal
15 time who congregate at Van Wyck and Convent
16 Road. This other count also fails to take
17 into the account the safety of children. An
18 additional count should be taken, if at all
19 since the locations will become a four way
20 intersection if the project continues as
21 planned. This is also true of the
22 pedestrian, bus and passenger vehicle traffic
23 at Tappan Zee High School which has the same
24 starting time of 7:35 and dismissal at 2:20,
25 but other students leaving prior to four
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2 because of various school activities.
3 Further at the hearing for the draft DIS I
4 asked about a major thoroughfare to connect
5 Orangeburg Road also know as Veteran’s
6 Memorial Highway. I did not see an answer or
7 a rationale why it was not feasible solution,
8 thereby reducing the traffic flow on Convent
9 Road. Also in connection with the thing of
10 15 children, you are building 12 houses of
11 market value which will be open, that would
12 count somewhere between 24 and 30 children
13 per the percentage of the school district not
14 15. The proposed Orangeburg Bridge over the
15 railroad tracks, if that goes on as proposed
16 is totally unrealistic and would create a
17 very dangerous condition on Convent and other
18 roads in the area since the original people
19 who planned it, talked about one lane going
20 westbound as part of that thing. The people
21 said it would change later on but the
22 original plan calls for one road going
23 westbound. That is definitely not feasible
24 especially when you have a truck coming up
25 that road. And also we talked about the
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2 Orange and Rockland sites, there is another
3 Orange and Rockland substation planned for
4 the Verizon site which is at the back of
5 Veteran’s Memorial Park. Only one third of
6 that power is needed by the Verizon for their
7 storage services. Will the other two thirds
8 be used to power up this new development?
9 And what kind of lines would be brought over
10 there, would they be underground or are we
11 talking about above ground lines. And also
12 the five police officers you are talking
13 about adding, you are talking about the 600
14 to $700,000.00 at current rates. You are
15 probably talking about at the time this goes
16 on nearly to a million dollars in additional
17 salaries and benefits and everything else.
18 So I am totally against this whole problem.
19 You should do something else but this project
20 is definitely not what we need, thank you.
21 MR. KLEINER: Mr. Spiro, followed my
22 Alex DeMana, followed by Andrew Wiley.
23 MR. SPIRO: My name is Steve Spiro, I
24 live at Riverside Terrace and Swannekin.
25 Thank you, Mr. Mandel, I am on the school
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2 board, I would like to thank you for those
3 statistics you just gave us, because that’s
4 my concern not only my neighborhood, my
5 school district. If you are going to open up
6 three entrances and exits onto Convent Road
7 like Mr. Mandel said, it’s the kids are
8 walking there, there are school buses, all
9 right, and then you creating more traffic for
10 these people. Swannekin, one person said
11 they live on Blauvelt Road, the increased
12 traffic on Blauvelt Road if anybody cuts
13 through there, is going to be enormous.
14 Somebody said you can’t go over the bridges
15 with trucks, the Convent Road bridge, we have
16 one on Blauvelt Road also. So what’s the
17 weight restriction there? We also, my
18 community was built in the 1950’s, there are
19 no sidewalks. You want to put a solid line
20 down the middle, where are the kids going to
21 walk? When I moved in 1975 there were no
22 kids around. Most of them were grown up,
23 there was a few small kids. Now there is
24 more children than ever before, it’s
25 unbelievable. Every house has two or three
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2 children. There might be one or two original
3 owners there now. All right, so the capacity
4 has grown enormously, to put more cars on
5 Swannekin is a big mistake. It’s a big
6 mistake. It’s an accident waiting to happen.
7 The only thing I want to add and mostly
8 everything was covered, but this school
9 district and I don’t begrudge Pearl River,
10 but the district was drawn with political
11 dreams or something, all right. And why that
12 area is in the middle of the Pearl River
13 School District is beyond me. If they get
14 the benefits or rateables, fine. I am not
15 going to argue with that. I want the safety
16 of our children and the South Orangetown to
17 be guaranteed, thank you.
18 MR. KLEINER: Alex DeMana.
19 MS. DEMANA: Alex DeMana, I just want
20 to speak briefly about the advertising that
21 was provided on the tables for tonight’s
22 meeting. I thought it was completely
23 improper to give a time line of about 1/10th
24 of the actual information that have gone on
25 up until now, and it seems like you guys are
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2 so pro-development and pro this development,
3 that we should be able to see the benefits,
4 if there are any, for ourselves, and not be
5 forced to listen to an opinion on what you
6 think the benefits are. As far as the
7 request for the proposals go, we could have
8 rejected the findings and thought that any
9 proposal is too high density for us, and it
10 was not in the Town’s best interest to
11 continue, and wait for a market shift towards
12 maybe one more client for a commercial
13 development or even lighter, or maybe what
14 the property is currently zoned for which is
15 one house per two acres, R-80, which would be
16 way less impact. But we shouldn’t be forced
17 to swallow all of the opinions on the
18 project. We should be able to decide for
19 ourselves whether this project should
20 proceed, and I believe that the advertising
21 was absolutely incorrect and that the Town
22 Board has much more options than you guys
23 have been stating on the advertising that was
24 distributed. That should not be seen as fact
25 by anyone here, and I am thankful that you
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2 all still raised your opinions and questions
3 regardless of the statements that Thom has
4 been making all night. I want to say there
5 is a lot more people than are currently in
6 this room that oppose this project, so think
7 twice, thank you.
8 MR. KLEINER: Thank you, Mr. Wiley?
9 MR. WILEY: My name is Andrew Wiley, I
10 live in Pearl River. I am opposed to this
11 project. I been coming to Town Board
12 meetings for well over ten years. I have
13 full experiences of what you are capable of
14 doing and I have seen what you have tried to
15 pull over on this community in the Town of
16 Orangetown. Some you have gotten way with,
17 many you have not. One of the issues that
18 you learned is you got smarter. When you did
19 the Town pool you ended up spending one
20 million dollars of Town money. This time you
21 got the developer to pay a quarter of a
22 million dollars in order to get the zoning.
23 In my opinion, that’s nothing more than an
24 inducement of a bribe. If you look at the
25 developer’s agreement, which is on the web
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2 site, it specifically outlines on a per unit
3 basis what they will give. There has been no
4 appraisal. Again, this is their fiduciary
5 commitment to provide an appraisal, zero
6 appraisal. There did it with the STEJ
7 project. I was up there then. They did it
8 this time, that’s the reason why certain
9 people in this Board had me arrested, to shut
10 me up and keep people like you from coming
11 out and speaking out against them. I am
12 telling you right now that this zone of the
13 RPC-R zone which the STEJ project was, was
14 never fully adopted. They don’t even have a
15 copy of the bulk tables, height requirements,
16 setbacks, floor area ratio, and yet they gave
17 final site plan approval. They had an
18 illegal meeting on the Town Board where Thom
19 Kleiner invited the Planning Board members,
20 four Planning Board members showed up.
21 That’s a quorum, that’s an illegal meeting.
22 They ended up doing this. All I can tell you
23 is this, if you look closely they count on
24 you not looking closely. They don’t provide
25 you the information. They don’t take care of
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2 it. They hire Saccardi and Schiff who has a
3 conflict of interest. If I was a licensed
4 appraiser and I was getting paid a fee based
5 upon my recommendation, it would be thrown
6 out. It’s completely unethical, but yet we
7 have this situation here. The subcontractors
8 they have, some of these subcontractors hired
9 other subcontractors but yet that’s was not
10 part of the record. There is no accounting
11 for this stuff. I pulled documents. I spent
12 thousands of dollars over these years pulling
13 FOIL documents, every time to find out
14 information, and I can tell you if you look
15 closely at it, I will get it up on the web
16 site. As for the candidate for supervisor’s
17 position, she is an urban planner from MIT,
18 MIT urban planner. Read that, that’s exactly
19 what the goal is from this regime. They want
20 to make this an urban area. It’s
21 unacceptable. The request for the proposal,
22 this is all been manipulated. They didn’t
23 break the bids down to smaller ones so local
24 contractors could have the opportunity to bid
25 on it. They made it so only the big
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2 contractors could bid on it. Now, that’s
3 right, they are trying to pass this new thing
4 of a project, where you have to have an
5 apprenticeship program. They are talking
6 about having a meeting in the summertime.
7 Well, none of you are going to be around,
8 why? So they can, it’s my opinion, Thom
9 Kleiner could buy the union vote for his run
10 for County Executive, because he doesn’t
11 care, he is not here. He is on his way out.
12 He saw the writing on the wall, he said I
13 better get out of here, these guys are
14 catching onto me, I going to have to leave.
15 They put us into the plan. They put us 80
16 million dollars in debt, approximately 80
17 million dollars in debt, why? So we can
18 thank them for their greatness about charging
19 us, for selling property for 25 million
20 dollars. This is again, the exemplary
21 organization that was never talked about. It
22 never came out into any of your things. This
23 could be sold. This could be developed.
24 This could go into a rabbinical college.
25 This could go into religious land use. This
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2 could go into any of those little schemes
3 that are being done to avoid zoning. Instead
4 of one unit, you are going to have six to
5 twelve people living in it. We bought this
6 for control. We didn’t buy this for you to
7 decide what control meant. We bought it. We
8 spent the seven million dollars. You went
9 out and did all these things. The only
10 reason the pool had a vote was because I and
11 others went out to make that happen. Whether
12 you were for or against it, you determined
13 it. The same with the ball fields. They
14 tried to make me out to be the worse guy in
15 the world, because I said let’s go out and
16 have a vote. You are spending seven million
17 dollars on ball fields. They said he hates
18 kids, he’s this, he’s that. I’m telling you,
19 if you are not careful, you are going to be
20 on his radar and he is going to do what he
21 needs to do and I was threatened at a Town
22 Board meeting by Marie Manning. This is on
23 record, Marie Manning said you keep this up,
24 these personal attacks we are going get you,
25 and there is a record of it and I can back it
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2 up. So mark my words, you are going see
3 unless you decide to change this Board’s
4 substantially, with the exception of Mr.
5 Troy, you are going see an opportunity where
6 we are at the crossroads. Orangetown as you
7 know it is over if this goes forwards. Who
8 paid for the newsletter, by the way? Was it
9 paid for by the developer?
10 MR. KLEINER: (Clock beeping) I think we
11 are good, Andrew.
12 MR. WILEY: Beautiful, thank you.
13 MR. ANDREWS: My name is Andy Andrews
14 and I live on Cobble Place in Blauvelt. I
15 have lived here for 33 years, for three
16 decades, and during that time I lived there,
17 I have seen families come and go, families
18 who sold their houses to their children and
19 with this density plan I think that will be
20 ruined. I have a few questions, I would like
21 to know what is the bonus density to
22 Hovanian, meaning if they don’t sell the
23 houses what will happen, what is their bonus
24 density. The other thing is, I would like to
25 know what the fee sample is for this. I know
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2 you stated that there is going to be some
3 private homes, there is going to be condos,
4 there is going to be townhouses. The fee
5 sample meaning, how many of those units are
6 going to be paying full taxes? How many of
7 those units are owned on a ground below? I
8 would like to know also what happens to the
9 entrance coming out of the Children’s
10 Psychiatric Center. We only speak about
11 three entrances coming on Convent, but there
12 is actually four when you count the
13 Children’s Psych Center. What’s happens to
14 that entrance, what’s going to go with that,
15 is that going to be blocked off? Has that
16 been included in the DECF, I don’t think so.
17 There is also a, and I am not quite clear on
18 this, I got a phone call on the way over
19 here, there is a Town law by New York State
20 that is a Law 265, and it’s about the zoning
21 laws from New York State, and I believe it
22 states that the whole Town Board needs to be,
23 you have to have a majority vote and if you
24 don’t have that majority vote, and if you
25 have 20 percent of the population in the area
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2 that is against this project, how does that
3 affect this project? And that’s all I have.
4 MR. BERNARDI: Good evening, my name is
5 Michael Bernardi, I am a 43 year resident of
6 Orangetown. I liked Orangetown so much I
7 bought a home here and decided to raise my
8 family in Blauvelt. I bought my home in
9 Orangetown and I choose to live here because
10 of what it was, and what it is today, not
11 what it may become. Now as a Board and as a
12 Town we had the insight to buy that property
13 so the state couldn’t control it. I don’t
14 think anybody in Orangetown voted to buy that
15 property so we can overdevelop it the way
16 this plan is. Now there is certainly merit
17 to developing it and doing the right thing
18 with it, but the right thing is doing what
19 the residents of the Town, the residents that
20 voted to purchase it what they feel is the
21 right thing. Developing it for financial
22 gain and overdeveloping it is going to be
23 detrimental in ten years, fifteen years, when
24 my children are trying to grow up here and
25 hopefully my children will grow up here. I
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2 look at this plan, and I haven’t studied it
3 carefully, but I look at 543 units. That’s
4 not what Orangetown is, Orangetown is not a
5 place where we have high density living.
6 Orangetown is a community of homes and
7 property and of grass and of backyard pools,
8 and of children riding their bicycles and
9 children walking to school, that’s what
10 Orangetown is. We are an incredible
11 community, don’t change the face of our
12 community for economic, what we perceive as
13 to be an economic windfall. I don’t know we
14 need an economic windfall, and lastly I will
15 ask you to please have the courage to ask the
16 Town to vote on how we use our land, thank
17 you.
18 MR. KLEINER: Thank you, yes?
19 MS. O’HALLORAN: My name is Joan Marie
20 O’Halloran, I live at 56 Hoffman Lane in
21 Blauvelt. As many people know, I believe I
22 represent many people in the community that
23 are in my age group. I was born and raised
24 in Blauvelt, and I actually did move to
25 Ramapo because it was more affordable at the
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2 time. When I had my four children and saw
3 what kind of life-style was up there, I gave
4 up a lot to come back down to Blauvelt to
5 raise my children. I was especially thrilled
6 about the baseball fields, the soccer fields.
7 I dreamt about those things growing up and I
8 couldn’t believe they were becoming a
9 reality. The Gaelic Football field is not
10 only owed by Gaelic, but it represents that
11 they took charge of an area and own the
12 fields and it’s a great community area now.
13 I am very opposed obviously to the multiple
14 family housing. It’s not to say we don’t
15 need some housing, affordable housing and we
16 do need to break up the economy into
17 affordable housing for 55 and over, and
18 families that can afford it. One other
19 additional comment I just want to make, in
20 reference to the traffic report that I have
21 seen, there were comments in here in
22 reference to Convent Road and Parkway Drive.
23 One of the comments they made was that there
24 were six car accidents within a twelve month
25 period, only five were right angle and the
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2 report indicates if there were more than five
3 then we would recommend a stop sign, I don’t
4 think we need to wait for more accidents to
5 have a recommendation. I personally wrote to
6 the Town Board and the Traffic Advisory
7 because two of my neighbors had car accidents
8 right in front of me at that intersection.
9 This is before any multiple housing is going
10 to go in. So I do think there is a lot of
11 issues in reference to the traffic that do
12 need to be addressed, and this is a prime
13 example of it. Two neighbors that live
14 around the corner getting into a car accident
15 is not acceptable, and the Traffic Board
16 already told me that there was nothing they
17 can do about it because putting in a stop
18 sign was more dangerous, and this
19 recommendation was if more accidents happen
20 put in stop signs. This is very
21 inconsistent. I just want to conclude by
22 saying, I do believe the Town has done a
23 great job in helping families. I think
24 getting the fields the way we have them now
25 are wonderful, but I think we do need that
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2 Central Park, New York. I think that we need
3 to have an area for our children to be play
4 in and be safe, and we do need to reevaluate
5 the needs for the over 55 housing. We don’t
6 need another Yankee Stadium where we have to
7 sell two for the price of one and turn this
8 project something that’s not available, thank
9 you.
10 MR. KLEINER: Mr. Watson, I’m sorry,
11 Mr. Morgan?
12 MR. MORGAN: You’ll get it right one of
13 these days, good evening, my name is Watson
14 Morgan, I have lived off of Convent Road by
15 Derfuss Lane for 40 years. I probably go
16 onto Convent Road and Van Wyck Road every
17 day. It’s been a blessing somewhat that the
18 road, Second Avenue has never been opened,
19 except occasionally when they had to do some
20 work on Third Avenue. My concern which was
21 not covered in the DGEIS is that the site
22 line coming up from the reservoir, up Convent
23 Road is very poor. I don’t see anything
24 talking about a traffic signal in addition to
25 the one that’s at Third Avenue, but when you
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2 look to the right and look to the left and
3 look to the right and go, and all of sudden
4 you look again there is a car coming up
5 there. Without a signalized system and not
6 only, a stop sign is going to impede and
7 adding, when we were first told that this
8 project was going to be, we were told there
9 was going to be a tremendous setback off of
10 Convent Road. There are houses and multiple
11 dwellings going right up abutting Convent
12 Road. If you are going to have an open gate
13 by the Irish Cultural Center and have an
14 intersection there, people will chose to go
15 through the Kennedy Eisenhower group, to get
16 to Van Wyck Road or they’ll make a right hand
17 turn to further congest Western Highway.
18 Traffic, I just don’t think anymore openings
19 should be just willy nilly made. If you want
20 to make a ring road around the project, if
21 you are going have the project, I am not in
22 favor of the project as it’s written now. To
23 have a road maybe going out onto Convent Road
24 at the edge of the property might be an idea.
25 But to just say we have First, Second and
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2 Third and say let’s open them up, I don’t
3 think that is very good foresight. The
4 drainage, one of the reasons why having the
5 setback off of Convent Road is because there
6 is drainage issues. There is a drainage
7 stream that comes between the two defunct gas
8 stations that goes under Convent Road and
9 into a large gorge. Whatever you want to say
10 is, but it’s an open pit, the other day when
11 it rained tremendously after the last hearing
12 water was gushing out a 24 inch pipe on the
13 property into the stream. That was a stream
14 at one time in 1930s, and it continued from
15 where the Middle School is, through draining
16 the property. It’s been piped to a certain
17 extent. It looks as though it’s going to be
18 piped even further. I would be in favor of
19 opening it up, and returning it to a stream
20 and being a buffer to Blauvelt. This is
21 putting — there was a movie, I was in the
22 movie industry, it’s called Divorce American
23 Style. One group got the gold mine, and the
24 other person got the shaft. I think there is
25 analogy that could be drawn with this. We
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2 are getting everything pushed on our side and
3 the wheat and the chaff and we are getting
4 the chaff and Pearl River, this is a
5 community, we are Orangetown. We should be
6 developing and I was one of the people that
7 said let’s develop a Central Park and make
8 this a Central Park project. I am also in
9 favor of preserving some of the buildings on
10 this site. Building 40 which is a near and
11 dear to my heart, we have a new group that
12 suggests we want to have a cultural
13 committee, and there is a beautiful building.
14 I can give you three or four examples in
15 Boston, in Watertown, in some of the
16 communities, when Pearl River, save the Pearl
17 River theatre, this is a perfect opportunity,
18 a much better opportunity for something for
19 Orangetown, not just Pearl River, but
20 something for the community that could serve
21 in many ways the things that Riverscape can’t
22 provide for organizations that aren’t
23 developed as much, grass roots. It’s done
24 all over the country, and there is a bus
25 station. One of the things that it didn’t
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2 MENTION in the report, is Bus 20. It’s been
3 there for 50 years, I been here for 40 years.
4 Bus 20 is recognized as a major artery, a
5 major transportation lane. It did mention a
6 Bus 92 that is relatively new. It interfaces
7 with those two and perhaps more could be
8 developed. We have a bus station there that
9 is shuttered. To build a new bus station and
10 parking for the residents of this community
11 and if this community gets developed to serve
12 that community, so they can go to Palisades
13 Mall by bus rather than take a car. All of
14 those things are something we should look at
15 and hasn’t been looked at in the process,
16 thank you.
17 MR. KLEINER: Yes, sir?
18 MR. LENNON: My name is Don Lennon, I
19 live on Convent Place in Blauvelt. I moved
20 to Blauvelt in 1965. I grew up on Parkway
21 Drive North. My parents still live there. I
22 was fortunate enough to buy a house in 1997,
23 on Cobble Place. People here tonight that
24 spoke did a very nice job of speaking. One
25 point that keeps coming out in my head is the
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2 traffic, and the street I grew up, Parkway
3 Drive North, is a racetrack. It was a
4 racetrack growing up in the ’60’s and 70’s
5 here. I can see that as being a major cut
6 through for anyone who doesn’t have access to
7 this bridge or 303 or Orangeburg Road. That
8 traffic will come out of the development from
9 Convent Road, and growing up there was a
10 handful of accidents at Convent and Park
11 Ridge Drive, and hearing people speak and
12 just driving through Orangetown today, and
13 recently the accidents are more frequent and
14 with the way people drive today, living in a
15 hectic society, a society where most of the
16 people commute to the city, you are rushing
17 home, people are rushing to get to coach
18 baseball or get to their kids. Any increase
19 in traffic here is obviously going to
20 increase the accidents, and the safety of
21 Orangetown and the children. And points you
22 make about the lack of sidewalks, where I
23 live on the Cobble Place and Swannekin Road
24 group here spoke, numerous people made
25 excellent points. It’s been numerous times
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2 I’ve almost been run off Swannekin Road, if
3 you are going to toward Blauvelt Road because
4 of the blind spot on the right-hand side by
5 the trees there. There was one morning,
6 eight o’clock, bringing the kids to swimming
7 at the middle school, somebody comes racing
8 along. That’s just going to be on the
9 increase if there is a cut through when there
10 is workers are going to the Psych Center to
11 work, or the residents rushing back around
12 forth. I don’t see this development with
13 dense population helping the citizens here,
14 and there is plenty more who are concerned
15 about this, who cannot be here, and I really
16 think as elected officials you need to
17 represent us, okay? It’s not about some
18 developer. What’s your legacy going to be,
19 how are you going to be remembered? Are you
20 going to be remembered as people who worked
21 for us or left Orangetown in a shambles. I
22 don’t want to be personal, but I lived here
23 since 1965. It’s a great Town and a great
24 place to grow up and let’s keep it that way,
25 thank you.
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2 MR. O’REILLY: Tom O’ Reilly, I live in
3 Pearl River. I really didn’t plan on saying
4 anything tonight, but I felt compelled to say
5 something. I have lived 52 years here. I
6 moved here in 1967 from Queens and my
7 grandfather drove the moving truck up the
8 Palisades Parkway with myself and my two
9 brothers, and my folks followed in a 1950
10 green Plymouth. We were moving to the
11 country right here. It was heaven and still
12 is heaven in my book, but we could lose it.
13 We had six swimming holes I could ride my
14 bicycle to in Pearl River, there’s one left.
15 I grew up in the Boys Scouts in Harriman
16 Mountain State Park the best place in the
17 world. I spent a lot of time in Ireland. I
18 lived in Hawaii, I lived in Santa Barbara for
19 a few years, but I never left home. I bought
20 the house I grew up on Bogart Avenue in Pearl
21 River when my dad passed away nine years ago,
22 and sold my house in Santa Barbara, but I was
23 always coming home for all my Christmas’
24 vacations, when I worked around the world or
25 whatever. This Hudson River Valley to me is,
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2 I love the Rockies and I love the Sierras,
3 but this is one of the most beautiful places
4 on the planet. I am worried about traffic
5 and air quality because of the 62 counties in
6 New York State, Rockland has the worse air
7 quality of any county in New York State. We
8 have the highest cancer and asthma rates, and
9 33 counties have air quality monitoring
10 devices. We had an air quality monitoring
11 device taken out of Rockland Community
12 College two years ago. I am curious who
13 authorized that and why it was taken out. Do
14 the math, we have the Palisades, the Thruway,
15 287, the Garden State leading here, the air
16 quality is pretty bad. We have pollution, we
17 have water pollution. We have acid rain in
18 the Lakes of Harriman. I am an executive of
19 the camp committee of the camp association of
20 Camp Sebago, Adirondacks, and Bear Mountain
21 too, I love that park, and we have pollution
22 right here in Rockland pretty bad. I am
23 worried about too much mass growth. I am
24 really really worried about what is going on
25 in Ramapo. I was asked to go to the Ramapo
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2 Town Board meeting that night with 150 people
3 about the Burgess Meredith property. I never
4 witnessed something like that in my life,
5 folks. There was 150 concerned people like
6 us, and there was some people in the back.
7 It was unbelievable. The way it was run, I
8 never seen a Chairman run a meeting like
9 that, a public meeting where he threatened to
10 close it down because he didn’t like what
11 people were saying. The Burgess Meredith if
12 you know the story, it’s amazing. It’s a 300
13 year old odd historic farm house, it should
14 preserved. Okay, the Palisades Mall was
15 built against public wishes. In my opinion,
16 it destroyed Rockland County. Growing up, I
17 am running out time, growing up I could walk
18 (unintelligible) Pearl River High School,
19 1968, Rockleigh College, 1972. We could walk
20 to the movies in Pearl River. We don’t have
21 a movie theatre. Pearl River now, it’s pizza
22 places, banks, hair salons and bars. When I
23 grew up you could get everything you needed
24 in Pearl River. You didn’t have to leave our
25 town. I support my town now, I go to the
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2 restaurants in Pearl River. So many of the
3 small towns in Rockland was hurt by the
4 Palisades Mall. It never should have been
5 built, for many reasons, environmental
6 reason, air pollution. Three quarters of the
7 people who work there come from outside the
8 county. It didn’t help us financially as
9 they said. And about water, water is a
10 critical issue in Rockland. I don’t want to
11 happen, what is happening in Ramapo to happen
12 in my town, my hometown of Orangetown. On
13 Middletown Road, I live on Bogart Avenue,
14 where I have my engineering office. The
15 traffic on Bogart Avenue you have to be
16 careful when I come in and out of my
17 driveway. Bogart Avenue, it’s not even a
18 through street like Middletown Road. Slow
19 controlled healthy growth, we are not against
20 growth, we are not against business, we are
21 all for growth. What happened in Ramapo
22 scared the hell out of me. I don’t want
23 Rockland to become the sixth borough of New
24 York City. I remember in 1967 when the
25 reservoir from built with the Hackensack
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2 River. I mean we lost a lot. I am a member
3 of the Orangetown Historical Society, the
4 Rockland Historical Society, the Nyack
5 Historical Society. The Orangetown
6 Historical Museum had an exhibit years ago at
7 a local(unintelligible) and they had a copy
8 of Henry Hudson’s ship log a handwritten
9 thing, but (unintelligible) when he landed
10 here 20 years ago he described
11 (unintelligible) people and there were adults
12 living for some time in the river right here.
13 There was lobsters right here in the river
14 and there were oysters the size of dinner
15 plates, that was a paradigm. We lost a lot
16 in 400 years. I have seen what we lost in 52
17 years. I am just very, very concerned about
18 big projects. We really do need to take our
19 time and I know the financial situation is a
20 big impact. There is a lot of great issues
21 raised. I am worried about the air quality
22 and the pollution and traffic the most, you
23 know, anyway, thank you very much.
24 MR. KLEINER: Any further comment?
25 MS. GARCIA: My name is Lynn Garcia. I
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2 am a local realtor in the County. Just a
3 couple of comments, I really wasn’t planning
4 on speaking tonight. I do want to say I was
5 all for the senior citizen housing that was
6 being planned at the RPC development until I
7 saw what happened at the Hollows. I was
8 very, very, really against what was built
9 there, and as you can see right now senior
10 citizen housing does not mean $600,000.00
11 units and $9000.00 in taxes per year. This
12 is not what our seniors can afford. Most of
13 our seniors I’m dealing with are living in
14 $450,000.00 houses, paying $6500.00,
15 $7,000.00 in taxes. They can’t sell their
16 homes and move into senior citizen housing
17 that’s costing a tremendous amount of money
18 more than what they are currently living in.
19 So as far as them selling their homes and
20 moving on to open up new development for
21 young people, it’s not happening. I don’t
22 know what the plan is and the price tag is
23 going to be on this Hovanian property. We
24 can’t even sell what we already have.
25 Somebody mentioned earlier that 2002 is
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2 different from 2009. They are absolutely
3 right. We are not in the economic times we
4 were then in. I just wanted to comment on
5 the senior citizen thing. What I believe
6 what Orangetown needs is what we had voted on
7 2002, a Central Park like we are talking
8 about, an open space. We all voted on. We
9 all wanted. If you compare Clarkstown to
10 Orangetown right now, we are paying the same
11 amount in taxes, we have a nothing to show
12 for it. Clarkstown has three town pools,
13 they have recreation parks and it was paid by
14 the Town, not private little leagues that
15 kick in to make these things happen, which
16 has had to happen in our parks,
17 unfortunately. What I want, just want
18 everybody to do here tonight is we really
19 need to move forward with open space. I
20 listened to everybody tonight, you are
21 absolutely right, you are in residential
22 neighborhoods. I don’t care about the tax
23 base in Pearl River or the tax base in
24 Orangetown. We need to create something here
25 that’s good for all us, that is going to
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2 retain our property values, and that is going
3 to want people to come to this area for some
4 reason. It’s going to benefit not just our
5 current residents, but our future residents,
6 the future of our children and our families.
7 THE COURT: Thank you, is there other
8 public comment on the DGEIS, yes?
9 MR. PERZIGIAN: My name is Alan
10 Perzigian, I’m a 41 year resident of
11 Orangetown. I currently am living in Pearl
12 River for the last twelve years, grew up in
13 Tappan. My father moved up to Tappan back in
14 ’65. He remembered how nice this area was
15 when he was stationed at Camp Shanks before
16 he shipped off to World War II. Looking at
17 this plan, it actually looks real the way
18 they drew it. That is not what I can
19 envision that section of Blauvelt looking
20 like. That is not what any of us when you
21 think of Orangetown and this Town we grew up
22 in. A lot of us grew up here, some of us
23 moved from the Bronx, Queens, wherever to
24 come up here. That’s not what anybody
25 wanted. It’s not what anyone asked for. I
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2 understand it was great to get control of
3 that land, absolutely, control our own
4 destiny. But now of course I don’t know if
5 whether we bit off more than we can chew. I
6 don’t know if we have to leave it as is, or
7 do something with it. If we do something
8 with it, it’s going to cost us, two years ago
9 $18 million dollars to clean it up, and I
10 don’t think we have $18 million dollars right
11 now and I don’t know if we want to bond that.
12 Regardless now we have to do something with
13 it. So right now if the whole reason why we
14 are trying to go with this is because we
15 don’t have the money to clean it up, and this
16 is the only way to take care of it is to put
17 that type of the development in, we need to
18 rethink this. Whether it’s a bond or some
19 other way or do it piecemeal because if we do
20 it all at once, 500 plus housing units, again
21 a lot of people questioned if you can find
22 people to fill that. Right now, we have seen
23 other developments, no you can’t, and the
24 funny part is 500 something units, 30 of
25 which are affordable. If it says that, I
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2 mean when I heard that price tag, like the
3 woman before, Miss Garcia, what, if the whole
4 purpose was to get people from Orangetown or
5 this area that are of retirement age or older
6 and don’t have kids anymore, to give them a
7 place to go so they can stay in the area that
8 they love, like she said, the average house
9 that they are in is all paid off, that is
10 probably a four, $500,000.00 house. They are
11 going to sell that to move into a smaller
12 place that costs more. I know they say it
13 doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out
14 the economics. Actually, I am a rocket
15 scientist from MIT, so it doesn’t make sense.
16 And as far as the traffic study, I would love
17 to see the modeling on the number of cars. I
18 love how everything says conservative,
19 conservative, conservative and everyone in
20 this room is cringing. I would like to see
21 the models on where these numbers came from,
22 to make it public if possible. Also if we
23 get people from Orangetown moving into this
24 community which is hey, that would be nice,
25 they get to stay in the area. It would make
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2 economic sense which I question. Now it
3 opens up their homes in Orangetown, that
4 didn’t have kids going to school district.
5 So people are going to come in with kids most
6 likely which are now going to be a burden on
7 the school system, which we were saying
8 wasn’t going to happen. So the way I look at
9 it, if everything went exactly according to
10 plan, conservative and went according to
11 plan, everything was rosy and cheery and
12 straight streets had a rose bushes on and
13 everything was wonderful. I don’t think we
14 can take that chance because the negative
15 side, the possibly things that could go wrong
16 with the development. Which we have seen
17 other developments where things didn’t turn
18 out according to plan, you know what they say
19 about best laid plans? I don’t know if we
20 can take that chance on what might go wrong
21 if we go down this road. Once you open it up
22 you can’t go back. That’s not what we want.
23 That’s not what we want, I wanted a Town
24 pool. We put it up for a vote. I been
25 waiting for that Town pool since I was a
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2 little kid. It’s going to be open two years,
3 it’s going to open in two years. Now it’s
4 not, we put it up for a vote and everyone was
5 like that Wiley guy or whoever, he had every
6 right to, the people of the Town said no,
7 that’s a democratic way. It’s our property
8 we paid for it. I understand, let’s just put
9 it on the table we can handle the truth. If
10 we don’t develop it like this, taxes are
11 going to go up because we have to clean it
12 up, because that’s what we told the State we
13 would like, if that’s what it is just say it,
14 and then let people decide what to do. Then
15 you have maybe opinions are going to be
16 different. Let’s find out what’s going on.
17 I don’t live near that. I live in Pearl
18 River. I am going to get three million
19 dollars extra in my taxes and my taxes are
20 going to go down, yeah, right. And I am not
21 going to have to deal with traffic other than
22 a few extra people shopping in Shop Rite. I
23 should be happy about that, but I am not. I
24 would rather my taxes go up a little
25 bit,(clock beeping) my time is up. We don’t
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2 want that.
3 MR. KLEINER: Is there any further
4 public comment? First, what we are going to
5 do before we indicate the process that the
6 Town Board is going to follow with the plans
7 is while we are still on the record, I have
8 one concluding statement, but I am not going
9 to make it on the record because it’s not
10 part of the public meeting. I want to ask
11 the Board since they have not yet spoken if
12 they wish to speak in this portion of the
13 public hearing, or should we close the public
14 hearing and then we can make comments.
15 All right, what we are going to do is
16 close the public hearing regarding the Draft
17 Generic Environmental Impact Statement. We
18 are going to indicate at the same time we are
19 leaving it open with respect to the proposed
20 zoning text which is the RPC-H zone. So the
21 motion is to close the public hearing first
22 on this document DGEIS. Motion on that?
23 MS. LOW-HOGAN: Motion.
24 MR. KLEINER: Councilwoman Low-Hogan.
25 MS. MANNING: Second.
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2 MR. KLEINER: And Councilwoman Manning,
3 all in favor, aye?
4 MR. TROY: Aye.
5 MR. MATURO: Aye.
6 MS. MANNING: Aye.
7 MR. KLEINER: Aye.
8 MS. LOW-HOGAN: Aye.
9 MR. KLEINER: First of all, as we
10 indicated at the beginning of this meeting,
11 for those who spoke and wanted to submit
12 additional written comments and those who
13 didn’t speak and want to, for anybody else
14 for that matter, the comment period for the
15 Environmental Impact Statement will remain
16 open for about a month until June 18th, end
17 of the day, and anyone can submit written
18 comments which will then be referred to the
19 planning team and each comment one way or
20 another will be responded to as appropriate.
21 With regard to the proposed zoning text we
22 are keeping it open, but I need a little
23 clarification, what that means in context we
24 are keeping it open until?
25 MR. SACCARDI: The theory is to keep
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2 the zoning open until the SEQRA process moves
3 along. You can’t adopt the zoning, if you
4 chose to adopt the zoning, until you reached
5 the end of the process which is a finding.
6 So the idea is to keep the zoning hearing
7 open until the end of process.
8 MR. EDWARDS: You noted obviously the
9 continuation date for the hearing with
10 respect to zoning.
11 THE CLERK: Do you have to mention that
12 date now?
13 MR. KLEINER: We don’t know what the
14 date is. So what we’ll continue to do is
15 advise people through the media as well as
16 through the Town’s web site. This document
17 is available on the web site now. As
18 comments are or as the planning process
19 proceeds, the comments will be posted on the
20 web site as those comments become available,
21 and before I make a final comment that need
22 not to be part of the public record, is there
23 anything else you need?
24 MR. SACCARDI: No.
25 MR. KLEINER: Thank you, this will
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1 Proceedings
2 conclude the public record.
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C E R T I F I C A T I O N
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8 Certified to be a true and accurate
9 transcript of the aforesaid proceeding to
10 the best of my ability.
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15 Anne Marie Ambrose
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AUDIT
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TOWN OF ORANGETOWN
WORKSHOP/AUDIT MEETING
MONDAY, MAY 18, 2009
The Audit Meeting was opened at 7:32 p.m. from the Workshop Meeting. Supervisor Kleiner presided and the Town Clerk called the Roll.
Present were: Councilman Denis Troy
Councilwoman Marie Manning
Councilwoman Low-Hogan
Councilman Michael Maturo
Also present: Charlotte Madigan, Town Clerk
John Edwards, Town Attorney
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Charles Richardson, Director of Finance
James Dean, Superintendent of Highways
Ron Delo, Director of the Dept. of Envtl Management & Engineering
Kevin Nulty, Chief of Police
John Giardiello, Director of OBZPAE
Aric T. Gorton, Superintendent Parks-Rec. & Building Maint.
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RESOLUTION NO. 319 PAY VOUCHERS
Councilwoman Low-Hogan offered the following resolution, which was seconded by Councilwoman Manning and was unanimously adopted:
RESOLVED, that the Finance Office is hereby authorized to pay vouchers for Capital Project Fund, Self Insurance Fund and General Fund for a total amount of $184,765.78.
Ayes: Councilpersons Low-Hogan, Manning, Troy, Maturo
Supervisor Kleiner
Noes: None
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RESOLUTION NO. 320 ADJOURNED AUDIT MEETING/ENTER PUBLIC HEARING/RPC-DRAFT GENERIC ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT
Councilwoman Low-Hogan offered the following resolution, which was seconded by Councilwoman Manning and was unanimously adopted:
RESOLVED, that this Audit Meeting adjourned at 7:35 p.m. and the Town Board entered the continuation of public hearing regarding the RPC-Draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement.
Ayes: Councilpersons Low-Hogan, Manning, Troy, Maturo
Supervisor Kleiner
Noes: None
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Charlotte Madigan, Town Clerk