Upload
wspsells
View
263
Download
0
Tags:
Embed Size (px)
DESCRIPTION
Mahamudra Buddhist Hermitage FEIS, A-Public Hearing Transcripts and Written Comments, WSP SELLS
Citation preview
Appendix A Public Hearing Transcripts and Written Comments
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06� 1
1 TOWN OF WAWARSING PLANNING BOARD
2 ------------------------------------------
3 Combined Public Hearing on Draft
4 Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) and
5 Special Permit/Site Plan Applications
6 In the Matter of
7 DHARMAKAYA: MAHAMUDRA BUDDHIST HERMITAGE
8 ------------------------------------------
9
10 November 30, 2006 7:00 p.m. 11 Town Hall 108 Canal Street 12 Ellenville NY 12428
13 PLANNING BOARD:
14 MARTIN LONSTEIN, Chairman JOHN CONSTABLE 15 DOUGLAS HART DANIEL LITTLE 16 PAUL LONSTEIN CLAUDIA O'BRIEN 17 ALSO PRESENT: 18 MARYLOU CHRISTIANA, Town Attorney 19 DAWN BENEDICT, Town Engineer DAVID STOLMAN, Planner 20 BARBARA PAES, Town Clerk
21
22
23
24 Reported by: KAREN SCHMIEDER, CSR, RDR
2
Page 1
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
1 FOR APPLICANT:
2 JENNIFER VAN TUYL, ESQ. Cuddy & Feder LLP 3 FRANK FISH, Planner 4 BFJ Planning
5 PHIL CERNIGLIA Architect 6 JOHN HENDERSON 7 Dharmakaya Inc.
8
9
10
11 P R O C E E D I N G S
12
13 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: Good
14 evening, everybody. I call the
15 special meeting of the Town of
16 Wawarsing to order.
17 At this time will everybody
18 rise and please salute the flag.
19
20 (Pledge of allegiance).
21
22 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: Thank
23 you. For your information we have two
24 fire exits here. One is here; make a
3
Page 2
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
1 sharp turn, go down the stairs. The
2 other is here; you go down the stairs.
3 In case of fire you do not use the
4 elevators.
5 At this time I will open the
6 meetings. It's a public hearing for
7 Dharmakaya application, DEIS, site
8 plan special use permit.
9 Now, we were asked for the
10 Dharmakaya, please, they want to give
11 a short ten-minute presentation. So I
12 think that would behoove us all to
13 listen to them.
14 I'm sorry for the lack of
15 chairs. I didn't realize this would
16 be such a big turnout.
17 MR. CONSTABLE: Ask some
18 people to stand on this side.
19 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: Yes, we
20 should really have some of the people
21 stand over here so we don't block the
22 door in case we have to get out of it.
23 Okay, who is talking on
24 behalf of the Buddhist Dharmakaya?
4
1 MR. FISH: I'll speak, Frank
Page 3
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06 2 Fish.
3 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: Give
4 your name.
5 MR. FISH: My name is Frank
6 Fish. I'm with Buckhurst Fish &
7 Jacquemart; we are planners who have
8 coordinated the Draft Environmental
9 Impact Statement. And Pill Cerniglia
10 is the architect who is going to
11 briefly describe the site plan.
12 I'd just like to take two or
13 three minutes of your time -- that's
14 it -- to describe where we are.
15 Because I think the public sometimes
16 wants to just get a sense of where we
17 are in the process.
18 This is not our chart. It's
19 just a chart that we blew up from the
20 State Department of Environmental
21 Conservation, and it just describes
22 very briefly the State Environmental
23 Quality Review time frames. Which is
24 what this SEQR stands for.
5
1 We were here one year ago
2 today, November 30th, for the scoping
3 session, and your scoping, which
Page 4
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
4 scopes out on Environmental Impact
5 Statement, is just an outline of it.
6 The Board took care with the scoping.
7 I know we revised it before it was
8 finalized by the Board. And you
9 finalized it in I believe about March
10 of 2006. And then we prepared a Draft
11 Environmental Impact Statement, which
12 is in this time frame here. There's
13 no real time frame for the DEIS,
14 because the Applicant has to prepare
15 that. We prepared it and submitted it
16 to you June 30th of this year. And
17 then you had David Stolman of
18 Frederick Clark, who is represented
19 here, your engineers review it.
20 We have got all of your
21 comments, which your attorney
22 coordinated. And you initially
23 rejected our first draft, if I may use
24 that term. And we revised it based on
6
1 comments that the Board made. We
2 re-submitted the document to you. And
3 then in October you accepted the
4 document for public distribution. So
Page 5
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06 5 the document is now on the web site.
6 It's been distributed to what are
7 called involved agencies, that's any
8 other agency that has any permitting
9 authority over the project. And it's
10 been -- we made about I guess
11 altogether about 40 copies of this.
12 So I hope that it's been available to
13 all of you. Again, it's on the web
14 site.
15 So that is where we are this
16 evening. But this evening's hearing
17 would be followed by what's called a
18 Final Environmental Impact Statement.
19 So all of your comments tonight, our
20 job will be not to answer them
21 tonight, or we'd be here for an
22 awfully long time, but to answer them
23 in writing in the Final Environmental
24 Impact Statement. But tonight is the
7
1 night for the public to be heard on
2 three things really. There's a Site
3 Plan involved, which Phil is now going
4 to describe. There's a Special Permit
5 involved to allow the use Dharmakaya,
6 a Buddhist Hermitage use. And there's
Page 6
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
7 the Draft Environmental Impact
8 Statement. So those are the three
9 items that the public hearing is being
10 held on: Site Plan, Special Permit
11 and the DEIS. And because the Site
12 Plan is important, I'm going to want
13 to turn this to Phil to describe it
14 briefly, and then I'll briefly
15 describe the contents of the DEIS.
16 MR. CERNIGLIA: Thanks,
17 Frank.
18 As Frank just mentioned,
19 concurrently with the DEIS submission
20 were applications made for a Special
21 Use Permit, which is under the Board's
22 review for the entire use of the
23 property. So the first plan that I
24 present to you briefly will be in
8
1 regards to the Special Use Permit. I
2 think this is a plan -- if everybody
3 can see it -- that everybody is quite
4 familiar with by this time.
5 Essentially this is the
6 property. Old Inn Road is up in this
7 direction; Cragsmoor Road is down
Page 7
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06 8 here. The property entrance is
9 proposed to be off Cragsmoor Road.
10 That is the main and only entrance for
11 this project, other than the Town's
12 requested emergency entrance which
13 will occur off of Old Inn Road. But
14 that will be used only in times of
15 emergencies. The site will be
16 utilized through Cragsmoor Road.
17 The various centers: You
18 come in, there will be a welcome
19 house. This large complex is really
20 not that large. It is a Bodhisattva
21 Dharma Center with a green area in
22 front. Alongside is four residences
23 called Sanga residences. The
24 Bodhisattva Dharma Center will be the
9
1 main group meeting place on the site.
2 The Sanga residences will be
3 residences which will house staff and
4 students who will go through a
5 practice of meditation before they
6 enter into the Naropa Center and out
7 of the Naropa Center. So it is kind
8 of a staging area for that. The
9 Naropa Center are these two buildings
Page 8
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
10 here.
11 That is the long-term
12 version of the meditation retreat
13 experience at the site. It is a place
14 where retreats will be for as long as
15 three years. So that's why it's
16 necessary to have the Sanga residences
17 as a place where they transition in
18 and out.
19 Back in this direction, this
20 is a well house. It's of utilitarian
21 function. This is the guest teacher's
22 house. Every so many years there will
23 be some guest teachers who come from
24 abroad and stay here. And then the
10
1 main Rinpoche or teacher for this
2 complex will eventually live here.
3 That is the teacher's house. That is
4 the only building out of the entire
5 complex which will have access off of
6 Old Inn Road, no different than any of
7 the residences there now. So it will
8 function just the same.
9 And then the last complex,
10 which I will focus on in a second,
Page 9
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06 11 which is part of our Site Plan
12 submission for Phase 1 is the Milarepa
13 Complex. That has again kind of a
14 common welcome house area. It has two
15 residential buildings. The largest
16 building I brought an elevation
17 tonight to show you. Is where those
18 group meditations will occur. There's
19 a library and also another residence,
20 and then a smaller version of the
21 Naropa are the long-term retreats
22 behind Milarepa. Those retreatees
23 would be in those facilities for as
24 along as a month.
11
1 Another thing I would like
2 to point out, the site is designed to
3 try to preserve as much of the
4 existing vegetation and ecology as
5 possible. You can see this green area
6 around here is a buffer area which
7 basically illustrates all the existing
8 vegetation will remain.
9 As with any construction of
10 course there is going to be
11 disturbances. But Dharmakaya is
12 prepared to provide fairly extensive
Page 10
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
13 new landscaping to heal any
14 disturbance that the land might
15 experience during the entire buildout
16 of the project.
17 So again, this is regarding
18 the entire buildout for which the
19 Special Use Permit has been submitted.
20 The second part of that
21 application is the Site Plan. This
22 is, as I mentioned, the Milarepa
23 Center, which is Phase 1. Again, you
24 can see the extensive vegetation in
12
1 more detail here. Not only to create
2 privacy amongst, between the buildings
3 but to also buffer what is going to
4 happen here from the neighbors.
5 And if I just might add
6 again, you've heard it before, what's
7 going to happen here is not
8 celebrations, noise. The theme of
9 this is quiet meditation, learning
10 through meditation. Which no matter
11 how you cut it is a quiet process.
12 And then the last board,
13 this is as I mentioned the largest
Page 11
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06 14 building of the proposed Milarepa
15 Center. It houses the group
16 meditation space under this large roof
17 area. On this side is a library.
18 There is some utility spaces in
19 between, bathrooms and utility rooms.
20 And then on this side are residences
21 for the teachers that will be
22 conducting meditation studies in the
23 Milarepa Center.
24 The idea is to create
13
1 architecture which is consistent with
2 the local area, and use of materials.
3 We have stone, we have clapboard
4 siding. We have very low-profile
5 building massing. So we're trying to
6 in all ways possible conform to the
7 existing character of the
8 neighborhood.
9 FEMALE SPEAKER: What's the
10 square footage of that building?
11 MR. CERNIGLIA: This
12 building is about 6,000 square feet.
13 That's the largest building.
14 MALE SPEAKER: In this
15 complex that you're having can only
Page 12
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
16 hold 240 people at the maximum amount
17 of time?
18 MR. CERNIGLIA: I'm now
19 going to -- the way the program is
20 meant to run tonight, per the Planning
21 Board is that we are not going to
22 answer questions. We are going to
23 listen to your questions. We are
24 going to answer them in a formal way
14
1 when we write the FEIS.
2 So the last part of this
3 presentation is to turn this over to
4 Frank, who will talk about some of the
5 planning -- the plan studies that have
6 been conducted.
7 MR. FISH: I just want to
8 briefly mention again, I think it's
9 until December 13th, everyone has --
10 if you have additional questions you
11 don't raise tonight or someone
12 couldn't be here, you can raise them
13 through December 13th on the Draft
14 Environmental Impact Statement.
15 Our obligation, there's a
16 stenographer here, we'll get an entire
Page 13
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06 17 stenographic record. Basically the
18 Dharmakaya team is here, John
19 Henderson is here representing them.
20 Counsel, legal counsel, Jennifer Van
21 Tuyl, the attorneys who worked on
22 this.
23 So what we're -- what I
24 would like to just summarize very
15
1 briefly and then please direct any
2 comments or questions again to the
3 Chair of the Board, is that this is
4 what the contents of the Draft
5 Environmental Impact Statement are.
6 The Board went through these in the
7 Scoping Session and asked us. This is
8 sort of by state law set up in these
9 seven categories, but the one that is
10 the critical one I think most people
11 would be interested in is this Chapter
12 IV, where we have to describe the
13 environmental setting, the impacts of
14 development and then any mitigation
15 measures that result from those
16 impacts. And you can see, it goes A
17 through L. I'm not going to read them
18 all. But I think some are very
Page 14
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
19 important -- I won't say -- they are
20 all very important, but they start off
21 with land use and zoning, community
22 character, goes through the natural
23 environment of the site, including
24 stormwater, surface water, traffic
16
1 issue, which Charles sells has
2 studied, -the civil engineers here,
3 community facilities, fiscal and
4 social/economic impacts, which
5 something that your planners had asked
6 us to look at from Frederick Clark.
7 Cultural resources and noise. So all
8 of those categories are in the EIS for
9 your examination. Again, it's online,
10 and there's extra copies.
11 So that is our presentation.
12 We just wanted to say briefly where we
13 are in the process; that we are not
14 finished. That this is the moment to
15 hear from the public. Our obligation
16 is to answer your questions formally
17 in that Final Environmental Impact
18 Statement. So tonight is your chance
19 to be heard on the Site Plan, the
Page 15
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06 20 Special Permit and this Draft
21 Environmental Impact Statement. We
22 will then answer those questions and
23 submit a Final Environmental Impact
24 Statement to the Board, which they'll
17
1 review for completeness again.
2 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: I would
3 like to explain to the public, so far
4 this is what we have received from
5 them on the DEIS.
6 Everybody here we'll allow
7 three minutes. You should be able to
8 ask your questions in three minutes.
9 And I didn't say start.
10
11 (Laughter.)
12
13 I didn't have a signup sheet, because
14 I didn't think it was necessary. But
15 maybe I made a mistake. You'll raise
16 your hand. You'll get your three
17 minutes, ask whatever questions you
18 want. Please keep it orderly and
19 respect everybody else's opinion. I
20 don't know what the opinions are or
21 anything else.
Page 16
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
22 You must give us your name;
23 we have to have that for the record.
24 First one is this gentleman in the
18
1 plaid shirt.
2 MR. McKENNY: Jim McKenny.
3 I'm the president of the Cragsmoor
4 Association, and I would like to thank
5 Chairman Lonstein and the members of
6 the Board for hosting this and having
7 us tonight.
8 I don't want to take up too
9 much time tonight since there are so
10 many individuals here who want to
11 speak. The Cragsmoor Association and
12 indeed all of the citizens of
13 Cragsmoor take this proposal very
14 seriously.
15 To that end the association
16 has hired a lawyer, who is here
17 tonight to make a presentation to you.
18 As well as a number of experts who are
19 evaluating the DEIS. Some of the
20 experts are here tonight, but most
21 will be submitting their comments in
22 writing following this public hearing.
Page 17
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06 23 I urge everyone here,
24 whether they speak or not, to submit
19
1 their thoughts in writing so the Board
2 can evaluate them appropriately.
3 I'd just like to take a
4 minute of your time to explain the
5 general feelings of the Cragsmoor
6 residents about this project. In
7 short, it's just too big and not in
8 keeping with the residential and
9 historical nature of our hamlet.
10
11 (Applause.)
12
13 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: Hold it
14 hold it hold it. Please, please,
15 please. Let the man speak.
16 MR. McKENNY: There are only
17 four or five somewhat large buildings
18 in Cragsmoor, two churches, a library,
19 Sam's Point Visitor Center and the
20 firehouse. All of them no larger than
21 some of the homes in Cragsmoor. The
22 churches and the Visitor's Center are
23 less than 3,000 square feet. The
24 largest building in Cragsmoor arguably
Page 18
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
20
1 is the firehouse, approximately 5,000
2 square feet, including the area where
3 the trucks are parked. This is
4 1800 -- there is an 1800 square foot
5 meeting room which can accommodate up
6 to 120 people by the fire regulations.
7 Imagine what a corporate
8 campus sized facility at 78,000 square
9 feet with one building supposedly of
10 17,000 square feet could become. It
11 would swallow up all of Cragsmoor, 470
12 odd and some not so odd residents.
13 Our concern is not that there will be
14 20 individuals at this complex
15 studying on three-year retreats. But
16 the potential to vastly overwhelm our
17 small community with this huge
18 facility which could serve a vast
19 number of people.
20 Our concerns then are about
21 all of the environmental and impacts
22 that result, especially the scale of
23 the complex, the threats to our water
24 supply and the inappropriateness of
Page 19
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
21
1 such a large corporate campus in and
2 near our historic community, which has
3 been designated as a State and
4 National Historic District. The
5 facility needs to be smaller. The
6 community needs to be protected from
7 being overwhelmed by the potential of
8 this project to expand and engulf the
9 community.
10 Please keep Cragsmoor what
11 it is, what it was, that caused it to
12 be listed as a National Historic
13 District. Thank you for hearing our
14 concerns about our town and the care
15 you're taking with this project.
16 And I would like to
17 introduce David Gordon, who is our
18 attorney, and I would like him to have
19 at least his three minutes.
20 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: You read
21 yours. You did it right on time.
22 Hand it over. Okay, Mr. Gordan.
23 MR. GORDON: Thank you, Mr.
24 Chairman. I am an environmental
Page 20
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
22
1 attorney, and I've been working with
2 the Cragsmoor Association and
3 representatives of several other civic
4 groups. I'll try to be as brief as
5 possible. Of course as an attorney it
6 is a challenge. I'll do my best.
7 I'll point out, first of
8 all, we fully respect the opportunity
9 to submit written comments in two
10 weeks, and we will do so both on my
11 own with respect to the legal and the
12 SEQR comments. And also we have a
13 number of technical consultants who
14 the group has hired, as Jim said,
15 about taking this project seriously.
16 We are looking very seriously at many
17 of the technical aspects related to
18 water, planning, consistency with the
19 hamlet, viewshed and many others like
20 it.
21 I just want to go through
22 some of the preliminary findings very,
23 very quickly if I can. I'll be as
24 brief as possible.
23
Page 21
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
1 First with respect to
2 zoning. The site is in the RC3A
3 district, which is essentially
4 residential, but it allows houses of
5 worship with a Special Use Permit.
6 Mr. Chairman, members of the Board,
7 this is not a house of worship as
8 contemplated in the Zoning Code. This
9 is a sprawling complex. It's more
10 like a corporate campus or sprawling
11 multi-family housing complex than it
12 is a house of worship. We know what a
13 house of worship is. It is a church,
14 synagogue. It can be a Buddhist
15 temple. The denomination doesn't
16 matter, but it is typically a single
17 building or one or two buildings.
18 This is not that. This is not what's
19 contemplated in the Zoning Code. The
20 reason is clear, this does not fit in
21 the hamlet of Cragsmoor, and the
22 zoning recognizes that.
23 For that reason as a SEQR
24 matter in terms of impact it is
24
Page 22
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
1 thoroughly inconsistent with the
2 community character as Jim described
3 and other folks here will tell you as
4 well.
5 Many of the studies in the
6 impact statement are wholly deficient.
7 We are going to be submitting written
8 statements indicating the deficiencies
9 in the traffic studies. There are
10 just technical data problems. They
11 didn't take the proper counts. They
12 avoided the high season of traffic in
13 Cragsmoor. They under estimated the
14 growth in the area, because they only
15 looked at the growth Wawarsing and not
16 in the overall area, and several
17 others as well.
18 We have with us tonight a
19 consultant who looked at the ecology
20 and habitat issues. The short message
21 is the conclusions in the
22 Environmental Impact Statement about
23 the impacts on biological resources
24 are at least in the preliminary draft
25
1 we put together worthless. Too little
Page 23
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06 2 information is provided to support any
3 conclusions regarding impacts to the
4 project. The background research and
5 on-site survey simply ignored many of
6 the times during the year, again
7 similar to the traffic studies when we
8 would be seeing many of the threatened
9 species.
10 In particular, the EIS only
11 identified three rare species on the
12 site. And this is just an astonishing
13 result, given the fact that we are
14 here the southern tip of the northern
15 Shawangunks, which is essentially a
16 center of rare endangered species and
17 habitats, and The Nature Conservancy
18 will be submitting a statement to that
19 effect as well.
20 We have hired to
21 hydrologists to examine the hydrology
22 of the project. This is critical
23 especially with respect to the size.
24 The more water that this facility
26
1 uses, the less water that is going to
2 be available for the rest of
3 Cragsmoor. And the hydrology is
Page 24
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
4 indicating that the water is going to
5 be drawn down substantially.
6 One of the two hydrologists
7 that we have brought on is here
8 tonight and she will be speaking a
9 little bit later on.
10 With respect to the
11 viewshed. This is perhaps -- and I
12 don't mean to prejudice any of these
13 other impacts -- this is perhaps the
14 most important one. You have your
15 responsibility is to protect and to
16 require a study of what may be the one
17 of the most important viewsheds in
18 this area of New York State. This is
19 the southern tip of the northern
20 Shawangunks.
21 I was shocked when I saw the
22 EIS and in fact the most significant
23 viewshed impact of this site is going
24 to be from Bear Hill, which is
27
1 essentially right next door to the
2 site, just lightly above it and to the
3 west no more than a quarter mile away.
4 The EIS completely ignores this
Page 25
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06 5 viewshed impact. Let me say that
6 again. Completely ignores it. They
7 go out onto Bear Hill, and they say we
8 got a view to the south and a view to
9 the southwest, that won't be affected.
10 We say we are not going to bother with
11 the view to the east, because we are
12 off the path. They cite a sign that
13 says keep on the path a half or
14 quarter mile back near the parking
15 lot. Basically telling people not to
16 scramble off the bath in order to get
17 to the vantage point, which is a world
18 class vantage point. Because of this
19 they have completely ignored this
20 singular critical asset to this
21 community, which in many ways defines
22 at least one aspect of what it is like
23 to live in Cragsmoor.
24 One final impact which is
28
1 ignored, is the alternatives. They
2 only list three alternatives. One is
3 no action, which of course no
4 developer is ever interested in
5 pursuing. One is to basically build a
6 housing investment, which is an
Page 26
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
7 interesting alternative, and clearly
8 one they are not interested in. The
9 other is alternative site. They never
10 look at the possibility of as to
11 whether or not their purposes of
12 establishing a meditative retreat can
13 be accomplished by anything less than
14 a 17-building 78,000 square foot
15 facility. Or that it can be
16 accomplished by a slightly different
17 footprint.
18 And they haven't done any
19 viewshed analyses, this is absolutely
20 critical. There is no information in
21 the EIS whether this can be done,
22 whether they can accomplish their
23 purposes by anything smaller, which is
24 exactly what's needed in this
29
1 situation.
2 Finally, there is no
3 indication in the EIS of the potential
4 for growth of this site. And the
5 potential that this retreat will
6 ultimately attract more people from
7 all around the world, and grow to be
Page 27
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06 8 even larger than it is and more of an
9 infringement on life in Cragsmoor than
10 it is. We will be presenting
11 information on that at a later date.
12 I want to make two other
13 final points. And I know, Mr.
14 Chairman, time is short.
15 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: You're
16 over your three minutes. Go ahead.
17 MR. GORDON: First, you've
18 been presented in the EIS a statement
19 of federal law which essentially says
20 there's a law that protects religious
21 institutions. The law says you
22 cannot -- as you -- you are allowed
23 and you have a responsibility to do an
24 environmental analysis which protects
30
1 the residents of Cragsmoor from undue
2 environmental impacts at this site.
3 The responsibility is to treat the
4 religious institution the same as you
5 would treat any other institution.
6 And that's what the people in our
7 researchers and commenters are doing.
8 If this were a corporate campus you
9 would be looking at the size very,
Page 28
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
10 very carefully. And under federal law
11 and state law your responsibility is
12 exactly the same here. There is no
13 special dispensation or special waiver
14 of zoning rules because of the federal
15 law.
16 Finally, I noticed with
17 respect to the SEQR timeline that was
18 put up, the one thing that wasn't
19 there is a Supplemental Environmental
20 Impact Statement. Every one of the
21 impacts that I've cited would be
22 sufficient to require a Supplemental
23 Environmental Impact Statement to be
24 certain that you are viewing the
31
1 significant impacts of this site.
2 That would change the timeline
3 substantially. That wasn't this
4 there. In my view that's the
5 responsibility of this Board and
6 that's what we will be explaining in
7 our comments on December 13.
8 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: Thank
9 you.
10
Page 29
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06 11 (Applause.)
12
13 This lady in the front in
14 the pink shirt. Give us your name
15 please. You had your hand up twice
16 MR. GORDON: This is
17 Katherine Beinkafner; she is one of
18 our hydrologists.
19 MS. BEINKAFNER: I think I
20 need ten minutes, and I'll talk fast.
21 Can we use that? My assistant is
22 passing out some relevant copies.
23 There are five pages that go together.
24 And everybody on the Board should have
32
1 a copy of that. The consultants can
2 have some, and make sure the audience
3 gets some too.
4 First of all, what I would
5 like to do is take a few minutes and
6 describe what the consultants for the
7 Applicant did and then how do we
8 figure out if there's an impact on
9 neighboring wells. And then what is
10 the impact on the hamlet of Cragsmoor.
11 Our first graph is
12 production well No. 1 on the site, and
Page 30
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
13 it shows -- first of all, there is
14 drawdown of the pumping well No. 1 and
15 then recovery. They pump for three
16 days, they recovered for six days.
17 Maximum drawdown was about 29 feet
18 after the three days of pumping.
19 After six days of recovery, we still
20 have three feet left we didn't
21 recover. Normally you pump for three
22 days, you recover for three days and
23 you're back to zero. They were not in
24 this case. When pumping well 2 was
33
1 pumped for only 24 hours, this is
2 looking at what was going on at
3 pumping well one, you get 8 feet of
4 drawdown. For two wells that are
5 only -- well, that are actually 250
6 some feet apart, that is a fair amount
7 of drawdown considering the first well
8 was being pumped at 50 gallons a
9 minute. The second well was being
10 pumped at 24 gallons per minute. That
11 was for one day, 24 hours. Even after
12 like four or five days of recovery,
13 you still don't have complete recovery
Page 31
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06 14 in that well.
15 This is looking at
16 production well No. 1, the one we just
17 looked at the record for. Normally
18 what we do, we try to predict what
19 will happen over time. To predict
20 what happens with time you use a
21 logarithmic scale for the time. In
22 other words, you're condensing the
23 scale, the time later on as time would
24 go on, and you would project a
34
1 straight line. Or my colleague, Paul
2 Rubin, actually wants to project it on
3 a curved line which even accelerates
4 the decline. So out here saying that
5 we are pumping at 50 gallons a minute
6 for three days, and out here after one
7 day. Well, I think I got these mixed
8 up, but anyway, it is equal to seven
9 days at 7 gallons a minute or when we
10 get out here it is equal to 70 days at
11 7 gallons a minute after ten days and
12 so forth. Now, that's saying that
13 with continued pumping this well
14 doesn't show any stabilization.
15 Normally when you're pumping
Page 32
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
16 away the water declines, and then it
17 becomes stable for a long period of
18 time if you just kept pumping and
19 pumping. Say we pumped for six days
20 instead of three days. So what's
21 going on is there's no stabilization.
22 As you keep pumping, you're going to
23 have continued drawdown and even with
24 the time the pump is turned off you're
35
1 not going to recover as much as you're
2 drawing it down. In other words, the
3 well discharge is exceeding the
4 recharge of nature to that well. Even
5 when you look at production well 2,
6 which remember was only 24 gallons a
7 minute instead of 50, it doesn't
8 recover. That is really significant.
9 Then how do we figure out if
10 there's an affect on a neighboring
11 well? I just took the data from the
12 well at 71 Old Inn Road, which is
13 about 600 feet away from the pumping
14 well. And these little doobies here,
15 you can barely see them, they are like
16 an inch long on this scale, that's
Page 33
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06 17 when the homeowner is using the water
18 for whatever, running the dishwasher,
19 running the clothes washer, whatever.
20 This affect is the effect of three
21 days of pumping that well 600 feet
22 away. It is drawdown of about 15
23 feet. And likewise, this second blip
24 is when the recovery or the pumping of
36
1 the second well for the shorter test.
2 And again, this well doesn't recover
3 either after six days of recovery.
4 And again, it doesn't recover after
5 the 24-hour pumping test either. This
6 is a serious problem. This is really
7 indicating that given time this well
8 has the capability of draining a lot
9 of the water out of the aquifer there.
10 I just wanted to take a few
11 minutes just to describe the
12 condition. On the map in purple I've
13 got the site here. And the two wells,
14 No. 1 and No. 2. This little orange
15 line, the 1800 foot contour, if you
16 think of that it's where the hamlet of
17 Cragsmoor is. It is kind of a
18 plateau. And we know it is a plateau
Page 34
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
19 sitting on top of a mountain. The
20 only water that's there to recharge
21 the aquifer has to come straight down
22 from the sky. Here in Ellenville,
23 where you're down in a valley you can
24 get water that comes from the
37
1 mountains down into the valley to get
2 more water. But when you're on top of
3 a mountain, you don't have that
4 luxury. You only have the rain that
5 lands on top of this plateau. And
6 then most of it probably flows down
7 toward the pumping well at this site.
8 These red lines actually show from
9 well No. 1 out to the two wells that
10 showed the most substantial drawdown.
11 Both of them are on Old Inn Road. One
12 was No. 45 or 49, I don't recall
13 which, Dunburg. The other one was No.
14 71 that I showed in the graph.
15 So these lines kind of just
16 show the trend of the direction where
17 this well can have dramatic effects.
18 This is normal -- he on the Shawangunk
19 Ridge --
Page 35
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06 20 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: Excuse
21 me, you spoke almost ten minutes. Can
22 you please wrap it up. I'd appreciate
23 it.
24 MS. BEINKAFNER: Okay, one
38
1 more thing.
2 MALE SPEAKER: If you don't
3 mind, I think some of us would give up
4 minutes just to have this information.
5 She's hitting some really good numbers
6 here, so...
7 MS. BEINKAFNER:
8 Cross-section: This is like cutting
9 down through the mountain. It is a
10 black line on the map and this is a
11 cross-section through that area. So
12 the ground surface is there. You can
13 see where the roads intersect. North
14 is on this side. South is on that
15 side. So the top of this is actually
16 the topographic surface, and then
17 these are the elevations going down
18 into the earth.
19 This is the well at the
20 site. And the blue is the water table
21 fairly close to the surface. It's
Page 36
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
22 about 27 feet right there at that
23 well. So I kind of drew it parallel
24 to the ground surface. I suspect it's
39
1 a little lower when you get up into
2 the flat area. The test, if we're
3 pumping the well here we have a little
4 bit of drawdown for this test. But
5 this well, because it is 405 feet deep
6 and at the time of the pumping the
7 well pump was actually at 350 feet.
8 If you kept it there, theoretically,
9 you could draw down the entire water
10 table in this area.
11 The other thing that we
12 don't know anything about is what
13 happens over on the way downhill to
14 Cragsmoor Road? All those houses have
15 shallow wells. None of them were
16 accessible for testing. A lot of them
17 are buried or they are under something
18 and we concentrated on getting points
19 in bedrock wells. So we don't know
20 what will happen if you continue to
21 pump here, how would you affect the
22 wells down gradient.
Page 37
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06 23 The other point is this test
24 was done under optimum conditions.
40
1 According to the report there was 18
2 inches of rainfall in the month of
3 October, prior to this test. That's
4 an out and out lie. We have never had
5 that much rain or at least that was at
6 Mohonk, assuming maybe we get the same
7 amount of rain on this end of the
8 ridge. I don't know. But certainly
9 that would indicate that this was
10 under good conditions.
11 What happens if we have
12 drought? There just is not sufficient
13 water there. The aquifer is very
14 fragile. The first thing I noticed
15 when we were out in the field and I
16 was looking to see what was going on
17 is this is a very broad cone of
18 depression. It's not just a little
19 cone of depression. It is very broad.
20 It goes way up past Old Inn Road, and
21 I have no idea how much further it
22 goes. But I know that there's some
23 impact beyond there.
24 I would say if the Applicant
Page 38
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
41
1 really wants to, if they could maybe
2 do a test over again. Maybe monitor
3 more wells up in this area and to the
4 north. Maybe look at the shallow
5 wells down on Cragsmoor Road. I don't
6 know whether -- because the drawdown
7 is only to this point, and these wells
8 would be down here. I don't know if
9 you can affect them.
10 But I did notice the house
11 on Clark Road did have some measurable
12 effect after the test. And I think
13 what it is, is when you're busy
14 pumping away here you're disturbing
15 the natural flow of groundwater. So
16 that three days later the water that
17 would be coming down the hill isn't
18 there, because it went into this well.
19 The other thing is that as
20 far as I know the septic system is
21 down on the lower side of the
22 property, so the argument that oh, we
23 are going to put the water back into
24 the ground really isn't going to be
Page 39
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
42
1 very helpful because they are going to
2 be putting it down on this side of the
3 property but pumping it out from
4 underneath the center. And what's
5 going to happen, it will just go on
6 down and feed the water table down in
7 this area, but will probably have no
8 effect back where the well is, nor
9 will it have any recharge effect back
10 in the hamlet. I think those are all
11 the things I had to say.
12 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: Thank
13 you.
14
15 (Applause.)
16
17 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: Yes.
18 MALE SPEAKER: I'm very hot.
19 Do you think you could open the door
20 in the back?
21 MR. BARBOUR: I'm ecology
22 here.
23 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: Your
24 name, sir?
Page 40
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
43
1 MR. BARBOUR: I'm Spider
2 Barbour. I'm their ecology expert.
3 Okay, three minutes.
4 Well, I'm grateful to Dave
5 Gordon for introducing what I have to
6 say and saving me the first two pages
7 of this long-winded narrative. A lot
8 of this is going to be my written
9 comments, so I don't need to go into
10 it in great detail.
11 But what's wrong with the
12 ecological surveys? Two things
13 basically. One that they didn't cover
14 the entire growing season, in fact,
15 left out the large middle of the
16 growing season from mid June to late
17 August, which in a high, cold place
18 like the Shawangunk Ridge is the most
19 important part of the growing season,
20 spring starts late up there. Fall
21 comes early. So that's the part you
22 really need to look at to find all the
23 species, to find especially the rare
24 species. This is the reason why the
44
Page 41
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
1 survey had so few species in terms of
2 flora and fauna.
3 If you look at that flora
4 and fauna section, it looks like you
5 were in some sort of biological
6 desert, where hardly anything was
7 growing or crawling around.
8 The other problem is that
9 the requirement of SEQR that you send
10 a request to DEC and the New York
11 Natural Heritage Program for the
12 records of rare species on their list
13 in or to evaluate which species are
14 likely to occur there was -- I don't
15 know what went wrong, but I've seen
16 this before, they come back with three
17 species. And really, if you look at
18 the Shawangunks and what you might
19 expect to find on this site, because
20 that's where it is, up on the ridge,
21 you'll fine at least 20 State rare
22 plants and 15 State rare animal
23 species that they should have known
24 about for sure. And they should have
45
Page 42
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
1 done an assessment in terms of the
2 site's conditions and resources as to
3 the likelihood of any of these species
4 occurring there. And they especially
5 missed the ones that are pretty much
6 exclusive to the Sam's Point part of
7 the ridge.
8 MALE SPEAKER: Would you
9 give an example?
10 MR. BARBOUR: Sure. One of
11 them is the Arctic Rush, another one
12 is the Appalachian Sandwort, which is
13 right on the rocks, and it describes
14 bedrock outcrops all over this site,
15 and there is absolutely no search for
16 this rare plant. The one rare plant
17 that they actually seemed to have
18 mentioned in the DEIS, which is the
19 Mountain Spleenwort, which is a little
20 fern that grows on the cliffs. That
21 one they managed to find at least in
22 the reference for it in the records
23 for the rare plants in the State.
24 So this really needs to be
46
1 rejected. As Dave was saying, you can
Page 43
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06 2 come to a lot of conclusions, but you
3 can't come to conclusions when you
4 have no information. How can you come
5 to any conclusion when there is just
6 no data to support one conclusion or
7 another? And that's the problem with
8 this thing basically, with that study
9 is that it really wasn't done at the
10 right time of year, and they didn't
11 even have the information of which
12 species that they should be looking
13 for.
14 Other than that, another
15 really important species, this is a
16 species that DEC pays an awful lot of
17 attention to, takes very seriously,
18 that's the timber rattlesnake. Now
19 the Shawangunks have quite a lot of
20 timber rattlesnake dens, including one
21 that's about two and a half miles from
22 this site. Rattlesnakes have been
23 seen around the mountain up there, on
24 Sam's Point Road and on the Sam's
47
1 Point Preserve. So we know that the
2 rattlesnakes move into that area
3 during the summer.
Page 44
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
4 Also, this hill and the
5 slope below it, Bear Hill, Randy
6 Deckert, a rattlesnake expert and a
7 friend of mine whose authority and
8 expertise I can certainly vouch for
9 says -- and he's the one who should
10 know because he's been everywhere and
11 he knows all the dens. Bear Hill has
12 never ever, ever been searched for
13 rattlesnake dens. And it has all the
14 characteristics, south and southwest
15 facing slopes, the steep slopes with
16 the rocks, these are the conditions
17 that are really perfect for
18 rattlesnake dens. So given the fact
19 it's in a very wild area, very
20 undisturbed, it is quite like likely
21 there could be a rattlesnake den on
22 Bear Hill.
23 How am I doing for time?
24 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: Keep
48
1 going.
2 MR. BARBOUR: Okay, thanks.
3 Let's see what else I didn't cover.
4 Oh, this is an example of
Page 45
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06 5 really inadequate identification of
6 species is when you find a species
7 list where things are identified only
8 to genus. And some examples are worse
9 than others. The case of sedges, the
10 main genus of sedge is karex. There
11 are hundreds of species in New York
12 and 70 -- 70 of them are on the
13 Natural Heritage List of Rare,
14 Threatened and Endangered Species. In
15 this plant list from this survey there
16 is only one species of karex
17 identified. Probably the most common
18 one or the one that's most familiar to
19 people, which is the tussock sedge.
20 Now, there are plenty of other species
21 of sedges up there, I can guaranty you
22 that, because I've been up there and I
23 found, you know, a dozen at least.
24 And including at least one rare
49
1 species that's on the list, at least
2 at Sam's point. I don't think I've
3 ever been on this particular site.
4 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: Hold it
5 a minute. We have got to change the
6 tape. Okay, thank you.
Page 46
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
7 MR. BARBOUR: All right.
8 Take two. I really want to mention
9 this, because this is the thing like I
10 just laugh my butt off. I mean I hate
11 to, you know, put people down or
12 anything, but I mean some of these
13 things are really amazing.
14 On the list of plants I
15 found this thing yellow buttercup, the
16 Latin name hibbertia hypericoides.
17 Hibbertia refers to some botanist
18 named Hibbertus, named after.
19 Hypericoides means resembling St.
20 Johns Wort. I had never heard of this
21 plant. Now, when I find something
22 I've never heard of in New York that
23 somebody found, it just -- I go wow,
24 what's this. And so I could not find
50
1 it in any flora. I couldn't find it
2 in the New York checklist, Mitchell
3 and Tucker '97. I couldn't find it in
4 Flora of North America. I went on the
5 web. That's what you do when your
6 references just don't help you. It's
7 an Australian plant in the family
Page 47
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06 8 called dilanade. The family, a whole
9 family, this entire family of plant is
10 not represented in North America at
11 all. It's not -- as far as I can
12 determine, it's not sold by any
13 nurseries. If this occurred there,
14 this would be a monumental discovery.
15
16 (Laughter.)
17
18 I suspect that it's a mistaken
19 identification. So I'm thinking, and
20 I've got pictures of this thing on the
21 web sites that describe it. It looks
22 an awful lot like a plant called
23 shrubby cinquefoil. Shrubby
24 cinquefoil is a plant that grows
51
1 almost exclusively in fens. A fen is
2 a rare type of wetland that is the
3 home of the endangered bog turtle.
4 Now, what did they find and how in the
5 world they ever tracked it down to be
6 this Australian thing, I don't know.
7 But what it sounds to me is that maybe
8 what they found was shrubby
9 cinquefoil. That would be a great
Page 48
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
10 discovery in itself, because it's an
11 indicator that the habitat, wherever
12 they found it, could support bog
13 turtle. So here's an intriguing
14 little tidbit. I don't know what it
15 means, and that's highly speculative
16 what I just say, but it's possible.
17 The other thing they could
18 have found is actually a St. Johns
19 Wort called shrubby St. Johns Wort.
20 But that has a really strange flower
21 that doesn't really represent the
22 five-pointed flower of the Australian
23 yellow buttercup.
24 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: Don't
52
1 look at me.
2
3 (Laughter.)
4
5 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: We have
6 had a long discussion many a time with
7 Paul Medley over these rattlesnakes.
8 I know where you're coming from there.
9 Will you wind it up for us.
10 MR. BARBOUR: I can say that
Page 49
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06 11 bog turtles are seldom found up on
12 high mountainous ridges.
13 FEMALE SPEAKER: Are
14 copperheads on the endangered species
15 list?
16 MR. BARBOUR: Copperheads
17 are species of special concern.
18 FEMALE SPEAKER: We found
19 two on our property just below us.
20 That's why I ask that question. And
21 we did not kill them, for the record.
22 MR. BARBOUR: Okay, I'm
23 grateful.
24 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: Sir, are
53
1 you done?
2 MR. BARBOUR: I just want to
3 make one thing clear about copperheads
4 and species of special concern,
5 recently the New York State
6 legislature acted to put the special
7 concern species under the same level
8 of protection as the threatened and
9 endangered species. So that's
10 something. If somebody tries to tell
11 you that the special concern species
12 are of no concern, that's not right.
Page 50
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
13 Thank you.
14 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: You're
15 very welcome.
16
17 (Applause.)
18
19 This young fellow with his hand up in
20 the air
21 MR. SHERMAN: Hi, I'm Henry
22 Sherman. I live on Route 8. I moved
23 to Cragsmoor because I work for
24 corporate America. And I know what it
54
1 is like to go from a mom and pop store
2 -- and a lot of people know me here
3 because I sold them a lot of things --
4 to a corporation. This community is
5 not ready for a corporation. In every
6 place I've lived in I've watched town
7 boards allow corporations to come into
8 their communities to taxpayers and
9 people that want to have a family,
10 like me, because I don't have any
11 kids, but I have kids coming, and you
12 want to have a good school system. It
13 took years for Ellenville school
Page 51
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06 14 system to turn around, because they
15 were the worst. They were the pits.
16 I'm not going to lie, you guys have
17 done a great job. I have nephews,
18 nieces and cousins that go to that
19 school.
20 You're allowing this
21 corporation to come in and they don't
22 want to contribute. You're giving
23 them a ten-year reprievement, correct,
24 you're not answering questions, but I
55
1 read everything. You're not charging
2 them tax for ten years. You're going
3 to let them slide. I'm just saying, I
4 got a letter in the mail. It is not
5 just that. They don't want to
6 contribute. They want to buy. You
7 want to build the Concord Hotel in the
8 middle of Cragsmoor. It doesn't fit.
9 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: Excuse
10 me, for the record, when they bought
11 this property, nobody was aware what
12 it was for. It was bought previously,
13 then they come with this plan.
14 MR. SHERMAN: Oh, I
15 understand a hundred percent, that's
Page 52
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
16 what they do. That's what they do.
17 MR. LITTLE: I think you're
18 supposed to be asking a question. I
19 haven't heard any question. Just
20 editorial. That's not what we are
21 here for.
22 MR. SHERMAN: My question
23 for the Board is simple. You don't
24 have the road frontage. The road
56
1 facilities. You don't have the water
2 means.
3 I'm only 38 years old I
4 haven't been around a long time, but I
5 moved there because I fell in love
6 with my wife. I moved there because
7 of the community. My question to you
8 is do you want to ruin that community
9 with corporate America? Because a
10 church is a corporation, okay. And
11 they are saying eight times a year
12 you're going to have a max amount of
13 people of 240 at this facility.
14 Everybody knows and the Cragsmoor Fair
15 there's 200 people you can't get to
16 the Post Office because the road is
Page 53
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06 17 blocked up for two miles. I got to
18 walk with my wife to go to Cragsmoor
19 Post Office. It is time. It is time
20 for our board to stand up an say no?
21 Go down to 209 on the left and buy a
22 piece of property down there. It is
23 time for you guys to do this. It is
24 time for some community board to stand
57
1 up and say no.
2 I have nothing against
3 religion. Build a church. That's
4 fine. They already own the house on
5 Bear Mountain, they bought it. Okay,
6 or Bear Ridge, whatever it is. I
7 don't know what it is. But it is time
8 it say no. These people have a lot of
9 time and a lot of investment than I
10 do. And I know what it is like to
11 come from a place that's over
12 populated and it is time to sell your
13 house that you owe $200,000 on, and
14 you can't sell it because people don't
15 want to bring their kids there because
16 it is too busy. I'm in that jam right
17 now.
18 I'm a hard-working man that
Page 54
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
19 pays my taxes and I owe nothing. It
20 is time for the Board to say no. I
21 think everybody will agree here. It's
22 time to say no.
23
24 (Applause.)
58
1
2 MS. CHRISTIANA: I just want
3 to clarify it is a time for comments.
4 It's not only questions. Everyone can
5 comment on the DEIS and Site Plan and
6 Special Use Permit. So I don't want
7 you to think if you don't have a
8 question, you can't speak.
9 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: Lady
10 with her hand up first.
11 MS. WAGNER: Okay, I'm going
12 to speak for three minutes regarding
13 comments from the nature Conservancy.
14 But I also would like to read
15 something on behalf of Chuck Davidson
16 after that. So I'm requesting three
17 more minutes.
18 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: Your
19 name please.
Page 55
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06 20 MS. WAGNER: My name is
21 Heidi Wagner. I am the preserve
22 manager for the Sam's Point Preserve,
23 which is managed by the Eastern New
24 York Chapter of the Nature
59
1 Conservancy. And I am a resident of
2 Cragsmoor. I am joined tonight by my
3 colleague Cara Lee, the Conservancy's
4 Director for our Shawangunk Ridge
5 program.
6 The Nature Conservancy is an
7 international conservation
8 organization dedicated to the
9 preservation of the diversity of
10 plants and animals and their habitat
11 worldwide.
12 TNC has had a long
13 involvement in the protection of the
14 Shawangunk Ridge and is responsible
15 for the management of Sam's Point
16 Preserve and Cragsmoor. We and our
17 conservation partners have invested
18 millions of dollars in conservation of
19 sensitive lands of the Shawangunks.
20 In addition to the extraordinary
21 biological values of the area, Sam's
Page 56
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
22 Point Preserve and the Shawangunks are
23 considered one of the region's most
24 important recreational areas because
60
1 of the dramatic cliffscapes, vistas
2 and hiking opportunities. At the
3 highest point along the Shawangunk
4 Ridge, Sam's Point and the surrounding
5 area represents the most biologically
6 unique area of the entire ridge. It
7 is home to the rarest natural
8 community in the northern Shawangunks,
9 the globally unique dwarf pitch pine
10 barrens. This community is ranked
11 G1-S1 by the New York Natural Heritage
12 Program which indicates the highest
13 level of global and state rarity.
14 The preserve is also home to
15 four other rare natural communities,
16 several rare plants and three rare
17 animals. Of all the protected natural
18 areas on the ridge, which total close
19 to 40,000 acres, Sam's Point Preserve
20 and the surrounding area is the most
21 intact and unfragmented portion of the
22 Shawangunk landscape.
Page 57
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06 23 The Mahamudra Buddhist
24 Hermitage development project is
61
1 proposed in a forested natural area
2 that is part of this ecologically
3 important landscape. At this time we
4 are reviewing the Draft Environmental
5 Impact Statement for the Hermitage
6 proposal and are working with the
7 Cragsmoor Association in identifying
8 issues that may need further
9 evaluation before the DEIS should be
10 considered complete. Tonight we would
11 like to raise several issues for your
12 early consideration.
13 Number one: Consistency
14 with zoning. Wawarsing residential
15 conservation 3A zone is essentially
16 residential but allows houses of
17 worship with a Special Use Permit. We
18 would ask whether a residential
19 compound particularly of the scale
20 proposed is what is contemplated or
21 allowed by zoning.
22 Number two: Suitability of
23 proposal. The DEIS compares the
24 impacts of the proposal with possible
Page 58
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
62
1 as-of-right development and conclude
2 that the Hermitage proposal will have
3 lower impacts than a standard
4 subdivision. We would suggest that
5 as-of-right development is a poor
6 measure of what would be suitable
7 because of the sensitivity of the
8 site. We would remain concerned about
9 the proposed disturbance of 39 percent
10 of the site which would result in
11 permanent loss of habitat, erosion and
12 stormwater impacts. The impacts on
13 ground and surface waters.
14 Number three: Use of a
15 conservation easement. Due to the
16 sensitivity of the site and the
17 concern of residents in Cragsmoor
18 about the potential for additional
19 development on the site, we urge the
20 Planning Board to consider
21 requiring -- requiring a conservation
22 easement on the undeveloped portion of
23 the property to assure that
24 undeveloped land be protected in
Page 59
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
63
1 perpetuity. This could be done
2 without hardship to the landowner and
3 can be triggered by either the
4 building permit or some other measure
5 of the project's progress.
6 Okay, that's the end of that
7 part.
8 Now, I'd just like to read
9 this on -- this is a totally different
10 approach, but it talks about what we
11 all feel and he says it so well, I
12 needed to read it to everyone.
13 A Hermitage that is.
14 Cragsmoor is a rare example of a
15 balanced, comprising, environmental,
16 historical, social, architectural and
17 spiritual elements. Cragsmoor is a
18 geological sanctuary millenniums old
19 where today people visit to revive
20 their spirit and gain perspective from
21 its vivid displays of nature and
22 harmony.
23 Cragsmoor is a reflection of
24 the inspiration that Hudson River
Page 60
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
64
1 School artists experienced. Cragsmoor
2 is an ancient pristine fauna, flora,
3 lakes, streams and the delicate
4 balance of their existence for
5 contemplation.
6 Cragsmoor is the community
7 that is to a great degree has taken on
8 the responsibility of caretaker.
9 Cragsmoor is a spiritual
10 place that has evolved naturally, and
11 passionately, and meaningfully.
12 Cragsmoor is an
13 environmental stronghold, an ecosystem
14 near the tipping point.
15 Cragsmoor is the present
16 experiencing the past, not just a
17 memory in books.
18 Cragsmoor is a place that
19 has kept its integrity through
20 discipline, restraint and concern --
21 not personal agendas.
22 Cragsmoor is like a rare
23 bird that should be deemed a protected
24 species.
65
Page 61
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
1 I can understand why the
2 Mahamudra Hermitage wants to situate
3 in such a special and mystical place:
4 Because of what Cragsmoor is. What
5 Cragsmoor is is because of what
6 Cragsmoor isn't.
7 It isn't foul water and
8 earth quality that can't support its
9 pristine habitat.
10 It isn't an imbalance of
11 people to environment.
12 It isn't a place of stress.
13 Cragsmoor is an example of
14 defining possible bills and
15 responsibilities. Cragsmoor depicts
16 the axiom less is more. I believe one
17 Hermitage on the mountain is all that
18 it can support. Chuck Davidson.
19
20 (Applause.)
21
22 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: This
23 lady over here.
24 MS. GRACE: My name is Karen
66
Page 62
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
1 Grace, and I live in Cragsmoor. I'm
2 in the lower section. I'm at 43
3 Cragsmoor Road.
4 Presently on my property a
5 couple years ago I came to the town
6 board because I wanted to put a shed
7 up. I had limited space on my
8 property to do it, due to the fact
9 that there is severe runoff and my
10 property is so wet that I could not
11 just put a shed anywhere. I had to
12 get a variance in order to do it to
13 put it right close to my neighbor's
14 property. Thank you to my neighbor,
15 they allowed me to do that and the
16 Board.
17 Over time I've been there
18 for 22 years. I find that when we get
19 rainfall, when we get snow my property
20 gets two feet of water in its front
21 yard that my neighbor's child can
22 drown in. I don't mean to sound like
23 I have an attitude, but this has been
24 a fight for me for 22 years. I cannot
67
1 get drainage on my property. But a
Page 63
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06 2 four-year-old child can go out in two
3 feet of water when this occurs every
4 so often during weather and storms and
5 potentially drown.
6 Right above where I am is
7 where this proposal is to land. Well,
8 if I already have runoff problems, my
9 concern is with the vast buildings and
10 vast population for that area, that
11 when I first moved up there had a
12 residency of 260 people and I think
13 what I understand now is 420. Well,
14 it has since doubled in that time.
15 And as more population has occurred, I
16 find more runoff problems where I get
17 water in my basement that I did not
18 get 22 years ago.
19 My question to this board is
20 how can anyone even consider such a
21 vast project? Thank you.
22 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: Thank
23 you.
24
68
1 (Applause.)
2
3 next, gentleman on the side here
Page 64
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
4 MR. ROCK: Yeah my name is
5 Bernard Rock. I'm a year-round
6 resident of Cragsmoor. My problem is
7 the opposite I'm afraid, because my
8 well runs dry if I'm not careful. I
9 have a 30-foot shallow well, hand dug,
10 probably built sometimes in the 1930s.
11 Beautiful. But if I'm not careful
12 during the months of July, August and
13 September, I don't have water.
14 And I'm going to be very
15 brief. I'm concerned -- I am
16 profoundly concerned that this project
17 is going to affect my water. Thank
18 you for listening.
19 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: Lady
20 there. Your name please.
21 MS. MATZ: My name is Sally
22 Matz. I'm president of the Cragsmoor
23 Historical Society, and we want to
24 thank you for providing this evening
69
1 for us. The Historical Society Board
2 has reviewed the DEIS and is very
3 concerned with the propose
4 development's adverse impact on the
Page 65
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06 5 setting of the two National Register
6 listed residential buildings, that is
7 the home of Richard Harts and Elaine
8 Caldwell and the home of Bernard Rose.
9 And the historic open spaces between
10 that also National Register listed
11 property.
12 Specifically, the proposed
13 teacher's house is presently shown in
14 the site to be sited in the historic
15 open space within the viewshed of the
16 former Cragsmoor Inn and in close
17 proximity to the two aforementioned
18 historic residences.
19 The DEIS acknowledges that
20 the proposed building is in the
21 historic district but makes no case as
22 to why the building could not be sited
23 elsewhere, so the open views could be
24 protected and the privacy and setting
70
1 of the two historic residences could
2 be maintained.
3 The DEIS does not
4 acknowledge the adverse impact, and
5 thus is in error. The Applicant
6 presumes, based on comments in other
Page 66
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
7 parts of the DEIS, that later
8 contextual design decisions would
9 mitigate the adverse impacts. This is
10 not a wise approach. We believe that
11 finding another location for the
12 teacher's house is the obvious
13 solution. New construction in the
14 listed historic district is avoidable,
15 and easily mitigated by redesigning
16 the site in this portion of the
17 development. As sited, the proposed
18 building constitutes an adverse impact
19 on the historic district.
20 The Board of the Historical
21 Society would be pleased to meet with
22 the Applicant's consultants to
23 consider options that would remove or
24 mitigate these adverse impacts on the
71
1 registered districts.
2 In summary, the Cragsmoor
3 Historical Society believes that there
4 are prudent and feasible alternatives
5 to the proposed siting of the teachers
6 house and urges the Planning Board to
7 request a plan revision that protects
Page 67
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06 8 the integrity of the historic district
9 and the setting of the two affected
10 historic residences.
11 The Historical Society is
12 also concerned with a proposal by the
13 Cragsmoor Fire District seeking a
14 substantial upgrade to the Inn Road,
15 possibly requiring the removal of the
16 national register listed stone entry
17 gates at Cragsmoor Road. Presumably
18 this request is based on the need to
19 have fire trucks pass anywhere along
20 the road. Such an upgrade would bring
21 a significant adverse impact on the
22 district.
23 If a second access road is
24 needed for the project to meet safety
72
1 standards, then we suggest a study of
2 alternatives, including a new second
3 access road that could be dedicated to
4 emergency access.
5 Lastly, the historic
6 character of Cragsmoor, both within
7 and beyond the National Register
8 district boundaries is one that blends
9 cultural resources, open spaces,
Page 68
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
10 vistas, local ecosystems and
11 reforested areas in a pleasing
12 balance. The proposed development is,
13 we believe, a compatible use for the
14 land in concept, but we are concerned
15 that the intense use of the site,
16 mostly as a result of traffic brought
17 by significant periodic visitation and
18 by significant water and septic
19 requirements threatens that balance.
20 The society asks the Board to protect
21 the resources and community character
22 by asking the Applicant to reduce the
23 scale of the project as a matter of
24 buildings, roadways, parking lots and
73
1 landscape modifications desired are
2 out of balance with the surrounding
3 community. The Historical Society
4 will continue to review and discuss
5 the proposal and provide these and
6 additional comments, if necessary, by
7 the close of the public comment
8 period.
9 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: Thank
10 you.
Page 69
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06 11
12 (Applause.)
13
14 MS. RADL: My name is
15 Maureen Radl. I'm a 30-year resident
16 of Cragsmoor. I am vice president of
17 that Historical Society and very proud
18 of it. And also vice president of the
19 Friends of the Shawangunks.
20 And because of those
21 affiliations I take a very serious
22 interest in any development on the
23 ridge in general and Cragsmoor in
24 particular. And I have attended many,
74
1 many meetings like this. And I wanted
2 to thank the Board as well as the
3 applicants for the way all of the
4 meetings on this topic have been
5 conducted, with a great deal of
6 respect for each other. And I hope
7 that all of the meetings on this topic
8 will continue in the same way. The
9 tone is one of cooperation, seeking
10 understanding, and I hope that
11 continues and will result in a project
12 that we can all live with.
Page 70
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
13
14 (Applause.)
15
16 I personally welcome the
17 Dharmakaya. I feel a kinship to their
18 deep respect for the rare beauty and
19 spiritual quality of the mountain.
20 When I look at the photographs on
21 their web site of the beautiful land
22 they have acquired I know they have
23 chosen it for the very same reasons
24 that have inspired us to fight long
75
1 and hard to protect this extraordinary
2 setting. Cragsmoor, as you have heard
3 several times from several experts, is
4 a fragile environment, which can only
5 permit a limited number of people to
6 sustain life on this narrow plateau
7 without disturbing the delicate
8 balance with nature.
9 At the moment many of us
10 feel that we may be at the brink of
11 over stepping our limits. That is why
12 we're concerned about this building
13 project, which is by far the largest
Page 71
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06 14 would have been proposed for this
15 hamlet.
16 When the center was
17 originally described to the community,
18 we visualized a much smaller footprint
19 with a few small structures, primarily
20 designed to accommodate three-year
21 retreats. Now the proposed
22 centerpiece will be a meeting hall
23 larger than any structure in
24 Cragsmoor. The combined number of
76
1 residents and the staff who will stay
2 at the center for long and short-term
3 retreats is quite large in proportion
4 to the number of people who reside in
5 the hamlet, without even considering
6 the number of people who will also be
7 present on festival days and probably
8 remain for those weekends. These
9 factors still raise serious concerns
10 regarding the overall scale of the
11 project, occupancy load, water
12 consumption and runoff, sewage,
13 traffic, parking, fire protection,
14 land conservation, viewshed impacts,
15 loss of tax revenue and impact on the
Page 72
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
16 Cragsmoor Historic District.
17 With a project of this
18 nature on only 90 acres, I'm afraid
19 that ten years from now those
20 beautiful rolling hills and magical
21 woods that presently appear on the web
22 site will be covered with so many
23 buildings, parking lots, roads,
24 utility structures and large meeting
77
1 halls to accommodate hundreds of
2 people that its pastoral quality will
3 be lost forever.
4 So I would like to request
5 that the Planning Board examine this
6 DEIS with the greatest of care and
7 work closely with the Applicant to
8 find ways to mitigate its impact on
9 the area.
10 And I would like to offer
11 just four suggestions, four
12 recommendations to make the center
13 more compatible with the community and
14 its surroundings.
15 First of all, reduce the
16 overall size of the project by 40 to
Page 73
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06 17 50 percent. Second, avoid disrupting
18 the viewshed from the east side of the
19 Bear Hill Preserve that looks down
20 upon the area designated for the
21 Guru's house. This is in the historic
22 district as was just mentioned and is
23 characterized by very wide spaces
24 between residences. It should remain
78
1 that way.
2 Third, designate a specific
3 amount of money in lieu of taxes to be
4 paid annually to the Cragsmoor
5 Volunteer Fire Company to cover the
6 cost of protecting the center and the
7 increase in our population.
8 And fourth, as has already
9 been mentioned, create conservation
10 easements on all lands which will not
11 be used in the project proposal.
12 When these suggestions are
13 carried out, I'm sure you'll find more
14 people who will graciously welcome the
15 Dharmakaya as valuable neighbors in
16 our community. Thank you.
17
18 (Applause.)
Page 74
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
19
20 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: Who is
21 next? This gentlemen here.
22 MR. GRACE: Good evening.
23 Audience, members of the Board. My
24 name is William Grace. And I live
79
1 down on Lower Cragsmoor Road. My wife
2 has already spoken to you about the
3 sewage -- not the sewage but the
4 runoff, the storm runoff. And looking
5 at this map on basically down here by
6 discharge point D and they indicate a
7 nominal increase in the runoff. And
8 unless something will be done about
9 adding more culverts or something, I
10 mean I'll have an indoor pool in my
11 house.
12 With that said, I just want
13 to also state that I'm a short-timer
14 here. I've only been here 22 years.
15 We bought up here because we just
16 loved the area. My wife actually
17 lived in the house next door when I
18 first met her. I said I could live up
19 here, and we moved into the next
Page 75
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06 20 house. But it is a long story. But
21 what I wanted to say is I commute to
22 Morgan, New Jersey every day, and I'm
23 getting near the point I'm hoping to
24 look to retirement soon. I spent 22
80
1 years up here and put a lot of money
2 an effort to make my house as nice as
3 it is. You may notice the nice
4 flagpole out front. I plan to retire
5 up here and plan to retire what
6 because of what this community is now,
7 not what this thing may become.
8 And I also want to let you
9 know I enjoy coming home on the
10 weekends and feeding my birds and
11 watching the coyote run through the
12 backyard. And I know we have bear
13 because I had my suet feeder ripped
14 down many times. These are the
15 reasons I enjoy this area and that's
16 why I've stayed here 22 years and
17 hopefully, God willing, will stay here
18 another 22 years.
19 And I am not in favor of
20 this proposition. Thank you.
21
Page 76
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
22 (Applause.)
23
24 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: Next.
81
1 Gentlemen against the wall, go ahead.
2 MR. NOLAN: Thank you. My
3 name is Dick Nolan, and my wife and I
4 live at the intersection of Clark Road
5 and Cragsmoor Road, about two tenths
6 of a mile south of the planned
7 project. And I've got a number of
8 comments, but I'll keep it very brief.
9 I'm not going to reiterate things
10 already said.
11 First of all, I said your
12 sat in your position one time on the
13 Dutchess County Planning Board, and I
14 realize you're in a tough position and
15 you're going to wind up getting a lot
16 of grief over this no matter which way
17 you go. It is difficult for a town to
18 deal with subject matter experts that
19 come in like this. They give you the
20 thousand pages, and as a result of
21 tonight you're going to get 500 more
22 pages that now explain all the things
Page 77
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06 23 that were brought up tonight. So it's
24 a difficult position.
82
1 If there's a way to -- and I
2 also realize that your hand are tied
3 in a lot of cases. You cannot just
4 decide to do things because you want
5 to do it. I understand that. If you
6 have a way, if this Special Use Permit
7 can be denied, I think that would be
8 great. That would probably stop it
9 dead in its tracks. If it is not, and
10 it moves forward, I've got just a
11 couple comments.
12 One. I read on the web
13 site, and I didn't read all of it,
14 because I have a job like you guys do,
15 I'm sure nobody has enough time to
16 read everything provided. But they
17 had an archeological study done, and
18 it went through phase 1, and then they
19 recommended it had to go to phase 2
20 because the likelihood of some type of
21 ancient man artifact or whatever were
22 moderately present. That's what they
23 said. So they dug, what I read, like
24 212 holes with a shovel, decided that
Page 78
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
83
1 it doesn't have to go forward. That's
2 it. That's the end of that.
3 Now, what I'm asking, if it
4 does move forward, and I hope it
5 doesn't, it may be behoove the town to
6 require the town hire an architect or
7 an archeological expert at their
8 expense and have him on site doing all
9 excavation.
10 Because I think between
11 bulldozers, excavators and backhoes,
12 they are going to move a lot more dirt
13 than 212 shovelfuls. I think it would
14 be in our best interest to have
15 somebody there all the time.
16 I'm also concerned on water,
17 based on where we are, I'm not an
18 expert in water or hydrology at all.
19 My well is two-tenths of a mile
20 downhill. I also read in the best
21 that I can understand it, that water
22 isn't a problem as far as they are
23 concerned. Now we already heard
24 tonight in the battle of the experts
Page 79
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
84
1 that it is a problem. But according
2 to them it's not.
3 Now, if that's true, maybe
4 they can bond or post a bond that
5 would fix anybody's well within a
6 reasonable distance of this project
7 that goes dry as a result of this
8 project. Now, if their position is
9 absolutely this is no issue, then I
10 don't know why they would post a bond
11 to do it. My guess is they won't put
12 their money where their mouth is and
13 they'll decline to do that. But that
14 will be a good indication to me that
15 it is not as much of a non-issue as
16 they may make it.
17 I got one final point. I
18 can't figure out in all of this that
19 who is the legal entity that somebody
20 would go after when and if they don't
21 do what they are supposed to do. And
22 hopefully somehow when we go through
23 this, is there going to be an entity
24 that's somewhere in the United States
Page 80
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
85
1 that the town can go after if they
2 either need to execute some kind of a
3 bond or they need to do anything or
4 get them to do something that they
5 haven't done? I don't know that we'd
6 be real successful chasing somebody in
7 Nepal. That's all I have. Thank you
8 very much.
9 (Applause.)
10
11 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: Lady
12 there.
13 MS. LESSICAN: Hi, I'm Joan
14 lESSICAN. I'm an adjacent property
15 owner and year-round resident in
16 Cragsmoor, and I've been here a very
17 short time, less than five years.
18 But I will say I do have
19 water in my basement. I am on the
20 southern slope of the prospective
21 development. And I as many people
22 have spoken am very concerned with the
23 issue of runoff, of water, of the
24 change in population and what the
86
Page 81
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
1 expansion over the years may be. I'm
2 very concerned about the forest being
3 divided and the danger to the flora
4 and fawna that exist there. And I'm
5 also very concerned with the visual
6 impact.
7 I go to Bear Hill very
8 often. And from the plans that we've
9 seen tonight I see really a
10 slaughtering of that 91-acre forested
11 land where I live right below that.
12 Based on what I've heard
13 tonight, I do have some questions
14 specifically for the Board, which are:
15 Can the wells below the site
16 be studied? Mine was not dug up at
17 the time because I was on my way to
18 work, and we discovered that it had to
19 be dug out and I couldn't get my boots
20 and shovel it out. It's the third
21 well on my property, so water has been
22 an issue in the past. And based on
23 what our hydrologist has pointed out,
24 there's likely going to be a great
87
Page 82
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
1 impact on the water.
2 Can the runoff be studied?
3 I too have a very muddy yard for a
4 great part of the year. What will the
5 affect of such a large campus be on
6 the runoff to those of us on the
7 southern slope?
8 Can the wildlife be studied?
9 As spider Barbour has suggested, that
10 it has not been studied appropriately.
11 And I also did see that
12 there has not been an adequate visual
13 impact study from Bear Hill. What
14 will that eastern view be once that
15 corporate headquarters is built?
16 So from my perspective, I
17 would like more studies done before
18 this development be even considered.
19 Thank you for your time.
20
21 (Applause.)
22
23 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: All
24 right, who is next?
88
1 MR. BENTON: Good evening.
Page 83
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06 2 My name is Blake Benton. Thank you,
3 Board Members, Mr. Lonstein.
4 I've lived in Cragsmoor for
5 40 years. We have three generations
6 that lived in the house, family home.
7 I also have a contiguous piece of
8 property as well as a couple of other
9 pieces of property in Cragsmoor.
10 And speaking on community
11 character and the potential
12 development, in the DEIS they cited
13 several other sites that they
14 mentioned that were similar Buddhist
15 centers of worship. And I looked into
16 those Buddhist centers of worship, and
17 I found a common thread throughout all
18 of those centers, and that they were
19 the tip of the iceberg. They are
20 continuing to build out multimillion
21 dollar projects annually. And the
22 integrity of the communities that they
23 are based in have been completely
24 disturbed by -- or I wouldn't call it
89
1 disturbed, because I think originally
2 what they set out to do, be weekend
3 retreats -- and this is a quote from
Page 84
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
4 their site, they turned out to be --
5 one of them has a factory on-site --
6 off-site that is supported by the
7 community. And another one states
8 that they are going to build a
9 100-foot tower that can be seen from
10 the road that is a lightning rod, in
11 their words a lightning rod for
12 gathering.
13 So what we have is I think
14 we have a community on one hand that
15 wants to welcome a person with
16 moderation. And on the other hand I'm
17 very concerned about the potential
18 down the road for serious development
19 based on the examples that they cite
20 in the DEIS. I think that we are
21 really seeing the tip of the iceberg
22 with this development.
23 And I think the members of
24 this Board have an opportunity to
90
1 exercise moderation in this
2 development and to limit the capacity
3 of this group to disturb our community
4 and the community character that we
Page 85
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06 5 have.
6
7 (Applause.)
8
9 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: Thank
10 you. Your name plies.
11 MS. WEAVE: My name is Diane
12 Weave. I'm a resident of Cragsmoor
13 ten years or so now. I want to
14 address, as some before me have, the
15 water issue. Because that's a really
16 concrete issue that will affect a
17 great many of us in a very real way.
18 I own my house, and I really
19 can't afford at this point to have it
20 rendered worthless by the water supply
21 being gone. It would be a terrible
22 tragedy for anybody to whom this
23 happens to have their lifetime
24 investment in their home wiped out.
91
1 And I want to go on record
2 as saying that I think that one of the
3 obligations of the Planning Board
4 would be to really look closely at the
5 water issue, to make certain that
6 those of us who already live there,
Page 86
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
7 who already have investments are
8 protected from what could be a fiscal
9 disaster for us. Thank you.
10 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: The
11 woman in the middle back there.
12 MS. HOFF: Barbara Hoff,
13 Cragsmoor.
14 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: Stand
15 please.
16 MS. HOFF: I would like to
17 also remind the Board that the village
18 of Ellenville also gets their water
19 from the top of the mountain. In case
20 that wasn't included in the water
21 study.
22 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: Thank
23 you.
24 MS. MULLER: My name is Lucy
92
1 Muller. And what I'm concerned mostly
2 about is the traffic. We only have
3 one road into Cragsmoor. And are they
4 going to bring buses in? What kind of
5 traffic will this bring? I think it
6 will be pretty bad.
7 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: Thank
Page 87
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06 8 you. Lady there. In the back.
9 MS. DITAR: What Lucy was
10 saying --
11 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: Your
12 name, please.
13 MS. DITAR: What? My name
14 is Ruth Ditar. I've been a Cragsmoor
15 resident for about 50 years.
16 The proposed road that they
17 are going to go in to the left, say
18 coming up Cragsmoor Road and turning
19 left there is on a curve. Unless
20 there's a traffic light, which would
21 be the first in Cragsmoor, I just
22 can't imagine how you would avoid an
23 accident from the people coming down
24 with not seeing the people turning
93
1 left to go into the residences.
2 I mentioned this before at a
3 previous meeting, and so at this time
4 I would like to find when I can find
5 the answer to this.
6 Also, the next concern I
7 have is for the fire department. What
8 plans do they have for the fire
9 department? Do they have one of their
Page 88
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
10 own? Or are they planning to support
11 ours? And how will the trucks get in?
12 We recently had a disastrous
13 fire in Cragsmoor, and I don't see how
14 our little wonderful fire department
15 could take care of this large
16 community. Thank you.
17 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: You're
18 welcome.
19
20 (Applause.)
21
22 MR. PETERS: I'm (inaudible)
23 Peters, I'm a life-long resident of
24 Cragsmoor. I'd just like to tune in
94
1 on the moderation issue. Somebody at
2 the beginning said they were here just
3 a year ago, and I remember being here
4 then, and I spoke about just the
5 thought I had about a big business
6 coming to the area and how that made
7 me feel. And I mentioned Wal-Mart.
8 Little did I know, it seemed like
9 something large coming to a small
10 community. On a regular basis our
Page 89
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06 11 population will be a third more. On
12 an event weekend it will be 50 percent
13 more.
14 Now look at your communities
15 and just imagine what kind of a change
16 that is. In my business it's like we
17 say we're putting ten pounds of
18 potatoes in a five-pound bag. It's
19 very hard to squeeze them in. So I
20 think the train has already left the
21 station, and that it's on its way, but
22 it has to be moderate. We can accept
23 possibly a real scaled-down version of
24 this, but the size as it stands now I
95
1 think is much too large. Thank you.
2
3 (Applause.)
4
5 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: Who is
6 next? Right next to Dickie.
7 PHIL: My name is Phil
8 (inaudible). I would like to address
9 the environmental impact of the
10 neighbor. So far as I can tell the
11 impact statements have been done more
12 or less in bad faith. They have
Page 90
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
13 misrepresented the effect on water,
14 flora and fauna, the effect on the
15 view.
16 They have upscaled, not down
17 graded the size of the community since
18 it was first brought up. And they are
19 obviously now planning to build a
20 community within a community but not a
21 part of the community. And to my way
22 of thinking that is so antithetical to
23 everything Cragsmoor is. It is kind
24 of like a pimple on pure skin. It
96
1 sticks out and doesn't look good.
2 Another thing, if you pass
3 this Special Use Permit you'll be
4 force feeding a tape worm in the
5 community of Cragsmoor. And that
6 scares the hell out of me. I don't
7 want a neighbor I don't trust. And I
8 don't trust people who misrepresent
9 things the way these people have. And
10 that's all I have to say.
11
12 (Applause.)
13
Page 91
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06 14 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: Next.
15 MS. GRACE: Can I have an
16 opportunity one more time?
17 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: No, not
18 till everybody has been heard. Who
19 wants to be next?
20 MS. MULDOON: Catherine
21 Muldoon. I've lived in Cragsmoor for
22 about 25 years. One of the reasons I
23 came, because I know the Dharmakaya is
24 coming, also because of the
97
1 spirituality and what the mountain
2 offers us. But I think if we look at
3 the historical aspects of the hamlet,
4 the people of Cragsmoor and people who
5 live in Cragsmoor were influential in
6 purchasing the Bear Hill Preserve as a
7 community. We all bought that and
8 then we re-opened it as a preserve so
9 people could come and visit and walk
10 the vistas.
11 We were also extremely
12 instrumental in getting the Sam's
13 Point area --
14 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: Got to
15 change the tape. Sorry. Okay, go.
Page 92
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
16 MS. MULDOON: We were also
17 extremely influential in the entire
18 ridge line of Sam's Point connecting
19 over to Mohonk. Those 4,000 acres we
20 went to battle to preserve that from a
21 wind farm. And I think now basically
22 what we are all saying is I think the
23 Dharmakaya looking at the spirituality
24 of the mountain is great, and if they
98
1 could scale down their facility, that
2 would be certainly worthwhile.
3 But I think as a group of
4 the Cragsmoor people, we have
5 preserved our maintain top at a
6 financial cost to many of us. And we
7 would like to continue to preserve it,
8 but in our preserving of the Cragsmoor
9 hamlet we have also preserved it for
10 the entire community and the town of
11 Wawarsing.
12 So we would like you all to
13 look at what the hamlet offers. We
14 are on the ridge. We are the only
15 community that has a community of
16 houses on top of the ridge. As we all
Page 93
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06 17 know, there's a big thing of Save the
18 Ridge on every instance from New Paltz
19 all the way down, and everything in
20 Cragsmoor we consider to be part of
21 the ridge. And I think we have
22 preserved it over many years, and I
23 think we still need it do that.
24
99
1 (Applause.)
2
3 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: Next,
4 who is next? Who wants to be heard?
5 The lady what wanted to be
6 heard again.
7 MS. GRACE: Again, my name
8 is Karen Grace. Some people here
9 brought up points that live in the
10 lower southern part of Cragsmoor where
11 I do, where water is an issue, and I
12 brought up the point of water on my
13 property, excess water in my front
14 yard.
15 However, I would like to
16 state and have it be clear that just
17 because I get two foot of water during
18 rain and snowstorms, there has been
Page 94
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
19 three wells on my property, because
20 two went dry.
21 FEMALE SPEAKER: Me too.
22 MS. GRACE: So that's prior
23 to any of this excess usage. And a
24 lot of other people here have also
100
1 brought up that point and I want to
2 bring that up.
3 One of the things I noticed
4 recently is factors in wildlife.
5 Where I can look outside, and I've
6 been able to enjoy coyote running
7 through my backyard. Some people may
8 not enjoy that, but I do. The bear.
9 It has been in my backyard, has ripped
10 apart my suet feeders, has damaged my
11 neighbors bird feeders, has ripped up
12 brand new shrubbery and done lots of
13 damage. But it is part of nature and
14 it belongs here, and we as people keep
15 removing the habitat for our wildlife.
16 Because I don't know, I guess we think
17 we are better than them. Well, I'm
18 for the animal, and if it means that I
19 should die, then God let it be. I'd
Page 95
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06 20 rather let the bear live.
21 So these are factors I do
22 have concerns with. Like everybody
23 else, I love Cragsmoor, and we are
24 there for a reason. A nice scaled
101
1 down project is something that is
2 greatly needed. And I would like to
3 state that I have nothing against
4 religion of any sorts. I'm all for
5 it. But keeping in scale with the
6 community is of greater importance.
7
8 (Applause.)
9
10 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: Anybody
11 else? I just seen a hand go up.
12 Please stand up.
13 MS. ROGERS: My name is
14 Linda Rogers. And although my husband
15 and I have owned property in Cragsmoor
16 for 30 years, we have only recently
17 retired. And those who have spoken
18 before me spoke eloquently of
19 Cragsmoor, and I will let their words
20 speak for me. I have written you a
21 long letter, long past my three
Page 96
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
22 minutes, so I tried to condense it.
23 Mr. Chairman and members of
24 the Planning Board, I thank you for
102
1 this meeting. It is important to this
2 community that we be heard. I'm going
3 to comment on about six areas. The
4 size of the applicant's project,
5 water, visual impact, finance and
6 independent consultants, and lastly
7 board diligence.
8 I'm going to read because
9 I'm not a good free speaker. 78,000
10 square feet, 16 to 17 buildings,
11 upwards of 102 people and parking
12 places for approximately 112 cars on
13 91 acres is very large for Cragsmoor.
14 The Applicant makes
15 reference to a Vermont location.
16 Please note that the location is 500
17 acres and many fewer people.
18 The Applicant has given us a
19 four-phase project in the DEIS, spread
20 over ten years and maybe more. The
21 report states there will be no
22 fragmentation. Fragmentation in my
Page 97
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06 23 mind implies digging up the ground for
24 all the buildings, the roads, the
103
1 parking, the water, supplies and the
2 sewers. There will indeed be
3 fragmentation. The Board should
4 consider creating possibly an escrow
5 account for the mending and complete
6 repair of the terrain for each phase
7 of the project, should the Applicant
8 ever abandon any part of it, at least
9 there would be finances to repair the
10 ground. This project is very large
11 for Cragsmoor. Water, hydrology tests
12 completed in 2006, a year of
13 considerable rainfall by the Applicant
14 indicates sufficient water for the
15 project. But consider global warming,
16 years of undetermined weather,
17 possible severe drought, less or no
18 life sustaining water for the
19 homeowners of Cragsmoor. The
20 professionals and the independent
21 consultants have covered that better
22 than I.
23 Visual impact. The DEIS
24 neglected and described far too
Page 98
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
104
1 narrowly the visual impact southeast
2 from Bear Hill. Although I feel the
3 DEIS is in my words a vast volume and
4 over my head in many areas, I did
5 spend many hours looking at it and
6 studying those maps.
7 We have photographs taken
8 just this past week which clearly view
9 71 Old Inn property as well as
10 additional Cragsmoor Historic District
11 land and south towards the Phase 1
12 development. The Milarepa Center of
13 six buildings. Because of this
14 omission a supplemental DEIS should be
15 required.
16 Please be reminded that Bear
17 Hill was and still remains a favorite
18 location for artists. Historically
19 Charles Curran and I believe Arthur I.
20 Keller painted from these rock
21 properties.
22 Finance and independent
23 consultants. I would inquire as to
24 whether this Planning Board has found
Page 99
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
105
1 this to be an overwhelming project and
2 has employed outside, independent
3 consultants focused entirely and only
4 on this DEIS as provided by SEQR.
5 This project is of monumental size and
6 although I realize many New York State
7 agencies have been requested to
8 comment, I ask you if you clearly
9 understand?
10 Cragsmoor residents are
11 already speaking with independent and
12 skilled consultants, and I believe it
13 appropriate to ask this Planning Board
14 to require the Applicant to pay these
15 professional fees. The proposed cost
16 is beyond the ability of Cragsmoor
17 residents and the figures rise daily.
18 Diligence. You may or may
19 not welcome this proposed DEIS
20 challenge, nevertheless, it is on your
21 watch. A ten-year project is long,
22 and we will all, every one in this
23 room, be ten years older. But you are
24 our Planning Board and are the
Page 100
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
106
1 individuals called upon to review this
2 DEIS and to make long-lasting
3 decisions that will greatly impact the
4 quality of life in Cragsmoor, the
5 fragile and natural beauty of
6 Cragsmoor and the Historic District of
7 Cragsmoor.
8 This project as now proposed
9 is simply too large and impacts too
10 greatly on the community and the land
11 it will occupy. Thank you very much.
12
13 (Applause.)
14
15 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: Yes,
16 sir.
17 MR. MEILY: Hi my name is
18 Walter Meily.
19 I just would like the
20 Planning Board to consider impact of
21 the noise and construction equipment
22 for ten or more years.
23 Also, the majority of
24 Cragsmoor's population is north and
107
Page 101
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
1 east of this site of the construction
2 site. As we all know Cragsmoor Road
3 is the primary road that most
4 residents use to commute in and out
5 for goods and services, to and from
6 work. Will the residents of Cragsmoor
7 now be forced to use alternate roads
8 being South Gully and Vista Maria,
9 considerably narrower and do not have
10 painted lines and are treacherous
11 roads, as everyone knows who has
12 driven them. The potential for
13 accidents is higher. The residents
14 might try to avoid using Cragsmoor
15 Road for the reason to avoid the
16 construction, the trucks, possible
17 deterioration of the road itself due
18 to the construction and increased
19 traffic. Thank you.
20
21 (Applause.)
22
23 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: Anybody
24 else? Did you speak yet?
108
Page 102
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
1 MR. KRAFT: Not yet.
2 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: Go
3 ahead.
4 MR. KRAFT: My name is Jeff
5 Kraft, and I haven't heard addressed
6 they want to increase the community by
7 one third to 50 percent at the
8 potential of lowering property values
9 or affected by water tables and
10 everything.
11 What's the tax base for this
12 area, and can we afford to increase
13 the population and the wear and tear
14 on the roads and the community at the
15 detriment of taxes?
16 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: Thank
17 you. Next. Lady right here.
18 MS. DUNN: Yeah, I'm Irene
19 Dunn. I live in Cragsmoor. My
20 question is: Is the Board going to
21 look into the strong business
22 component of the Hermitage and their
23 tax exempt status? And will that be
24 in anything that you put out for us to
109
1 see?
Page 103
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06 2 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: Okay.
3 For the record, we have professionals
4 here that do the work for us. We have
5 Dave Stolman here from Clark
6 Associates from planning. We have
7 Dawn here, she is from our engineer
8 and surveying company who does that
9 work. Of course we have Marylou
10 Christiana here who is our lawyer. We
11 don't do it ourselves. We hire
12 professionals. Because I'm not a
13 surveyor, and I'm not a lawyer and I
14 just try to run the meetings right.
15 Yes, ma'am.
16 MS. BEINKAFNER: Hydrologist
17 Katherine Beinkafner.
18 I would say with respect to
19 that you really need to hire a
20 hydrogeologist. Because an engineer
21 is not a hydrogeologist. In my
22 experience I've seen very few
23 engineers who really have a mastery of
24 hydrogeology and pumping tests and all
110
1 the rest of it related to the water
2 problem.
3 Another question I had is
Page 104
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
4 the scoping document, how would one
5 obtain that? Because part of my job
6 is to review the DEIS, but I need to
7 also be able to compare it against the
8 scoping document.
9 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: We have
10 one in town hall, right? Yes, we have
11 it in town hall. Come down here and
12 look at it.
13 MS. BEINKAFNER: So I could
14 call up Barbara and get a copy?
15 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: She can
16 set you on the right track. She's
17 very good that way.
18 Man in the back.
19 MALE SPEAKER: I've spoken
20 already once before, but my wife is
21 yielding her time. And my son will
22 yield his.
23 I just want to reiterate the
24 other site cited in the DEIS was
111
1 already mentioned that one of them was
2 500 acres. It is actually 540 acres
3 with less people on it currently. But
4 with a $3.2 million buildout plan for
Page 105
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06 5 this year, and ongoing growth taking
6 place. And another one of the places
7 that they cite is 600 acres. Well,
8 we're 91 acres, and they are asking
9 for as much or more than some of the
10 sites two to five times the size of
11 our site.
12 So it seems to me that they
13 are cramming it down our throat as a
14 community. And that's a pretty rough
15 way of putting it, but we've been back
16 and forth and at every meeting. The
17 level has increased, the potential for
18 further development, rather than
19 subsided in some sort of
20 reconciliation to us.
21 So I think the FEIS, the
22 final will just use our words against
23 us. Come back with more rhetoric, and
24 hand us back what we already have:
112
1 Something that's too big for our
2 community.
3 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: Thank
4 you.
5
6 (Applause.)
Page 106
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
7
8 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: This
9 meeting really continues until
10 December 13. You can write your
11 letters or whatever else you want and
12 get it into the town.
13 This night, tonight, is not
14 the end of this public hearing.
15 MS. CHRISTIANA: If you want
16 to close it after the written comments
17 on December 13th, though you should
18 have a motion to close the DEIS
19 portion of the public hearing, other
20 than for written comments, which must
21 be may by December 13th. Then you can
22 hold open the Site Plan Special Use
23 Permit portion.
24 MS. VAN TUYL: We would
113
1 agree with that. Because the DEIS
2 portion of the hearing has to be
3 closed to allow the comment period to
4 run.
5 MR. GORDON: Mr. Chairman,
6 could I be heard for a moment on this
7 question?
Page 107
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06 8 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: Go
9 ahead.
10 MR. GORDON: As I have
11 mentioned, we have hired a number of
12 consultants over the last couple of
13 weeks to look into these questions. I
14 feel very optimistic and confident
15 that we can get our comments in by the
16 13th. There may be an issue that
17 arises where further information is
18 needed. I know that one of our
19 hydrologists is looking for certain
20 background data, and we are only now
21 hiring an engineer to look at the
22 substantial runoff issues.
23 So I was wondering if there
24 would be a possibility if one of these
114
1 situations does arise, which I'm
2 hoping it doesn't, to petition you for
3 an extension of the written comment
4 period at that point?
5 MS. CHRISTIANA: If at this
6 point you'd like to make a longer
7 comment period, you may do that. The
8 13th is really the minimum you should
9 go out with. But you can choose a
Page 108
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
10 longer date if you want to.
11 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: 21, make
12 it 21 days? Don't make any difference
13 to me.
14 MS. CHRISTIANA: That is a
15 decision of the Board.
16 MR. LITTLE: Would it be
17 better to extend it or --
18 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: Well, we
19 won't have a chance. We won't have a
20 meeting to extend it. Better off
21 doing it now.
22 MS. CHRISTIANA: The 13th of
23 December.
24 MS. O'BRIEN: How long of a
115
1 period of time do you think you would
2 need?
3 MR. GORDON: The 13th is two
4 weeks from today. I would hope if we
5 did end up needing more time, for
6 example the stormwater engineer, that
7 it wouldn't take any more than another
8 meeting period for you, a couple
9 weeks, two or four weeks, whatever
10 your next meeting would be.
Page 109
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06 11 MS. VAN TUYL: When is the
12 December meeting?
13 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: 26th.
14 MS. VAN TUYL: We have no
15 objection to extending the comment
16 period to December 26th. We think
17 that this is a process where
18 everybody --
19 MR. STOLMAN: That sounds
20 like a good idea.
21 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: Okay, it
22 is going to be the 26th, after there's
23 a motion.
24 MR. LITTLE: I make the
116
1 motion.
2 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: Motion
3 by Little. Seconded by O'Brien. To
4 extend the comment period to the 26th,
5 which is the day after Christmas. So
6 get your comments in. Any discussion
7 on that motion?
8 On the vote. O'Brien.
9 MS. O'BRIEN: Yes.
10 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: Little.
11 MR. LITTLE: Yes.
12 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN:
Page 110
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06
13 Constable.
14 MR. CONSTABLE: No.
15 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: Lonstein,
16 yes.
17 Matichuk.
18 MS. MATICHUK: Yes.
19 CHAIRMAN LONSTEIN: See
20 that's a democratic process. Okay,
21 you've got until the 26th.
22 (Whereupon, the hearing
23 adjourned at 8:59 p.m.)
24
117
1 C E R T I F I C A T I O N
2
3
4 I, Karen Schmieder, a
5 Certified Shorthand Reporter, Certificate
6 No. 768, and Notary Public, do hereby
7 certify that I recorded stenographically the
8 proceedings herein at the time and place
9 noted in the heading hereof, and that the
10 foregoing transcript is true and accurate to
11 the best of my knowledge, skill and
12 ability.
13
Page 111
Public Meeting Transcript 11 30 06 14 IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have
15 hereunto set my hand this 29th day of
16 December 2006.
17
18 KAREN SCHMIEDER, CSR, RMR 19 Registered Diplomate Reporter
20
21
22
23
24�
Page 112