95- Route 212 and Plochmann Lane---Look Out!

Last Thursday evening at the Planning Board meeting, planning specialist Dara Trahan told the planning board that the State DOT "approached" the town, concerning the sight line at the intersection of PLOCHMANN Lane and Route 212, or the striping at the intersection of Routes 375 and 212, or both, I'm not sure. Either way, this is entirely false.

What Dara told the Planning Board members influenced the swing vote last Thursday night on a RUPCO project question.

Dara told the Planners that the NYS Department of Transportation made a presentation before the town board "last year." This presentation actually was March 18, 2008, over two years ago. In this presentation, which is fresh in my mind since I watched it in its entirety five minutes ago, (as opposed to spontaneously recalling something that happened over two years ago,) the only intersection discussed in terms of "fixing" anything was Playhouse Lane and Route 212.

Tom Storey, of the NYS DOT, was not approaching the town with any kind of offer to fix the line of sight at Playhouse and 212, either. Rather, he said that THE STATE had been put on notice, which means that the state had been notified that a hazard existed at that intersection. What this means, legally, is that the State, SINCE and BECAUSE it was put on notice, is now obligated to fix the hazard, regardless of what the town board "wants."

The town board did not seem to appreciate this distinction. Instead, several members of the town board suggested that the State DOT study all of the intersections involving State Route 212 and fix the ones that it found to be most dangerous. The town board appeared to have no appreciation of the State DOT's position, with regard to having been put on notice.

What Tom Storey of NYS DOT explained, and what was very clear to ME watching it just now, is that the Kingston office, where he works, handles the complaints such as the notice that was given about the unsafe sight distance at Playhouse and 212, but that if the town wants a whole corridor study done, then the Poughkeepsie office handles that, and it is the town board that must apply for that study, not simply declare that they want it done INSTEAD of the State's mitigation of a reported hazard.

Terrie Rosenblum in particular was ridiculous in her completely undocumented "fact" that the intersection of Playhouse Lane and Route 212 was not dangerous. I have gathered documentation and reports, or personally witnessed six accidents at Playhouse Lane and Route 212 in one and a half years. Are there really more accidents than four per year at other intersections? Reported and documented no less?

But that's another story. The main point here is that Dara, as recently as last Thursday, June 17, completely misled the planning board by telling them that the State DOT offered to fix the intersection of Plochmann Lane and Route 212, and the intersection of Route 212 and Route 375, and that the town rejected this "offer," and that information is simply false.

This falsity of information is relevant since Paul Henderson reasoned that since the town had the chance to fix this intersection and rejected it, it should not be up to RUPCO or the State, at this time, to deal with something that the town "had their chance" to fix but chose not to.

Henderson's decision to give RUPCO a break is entirely misguided, and a product of Dara's falsifying the town board record. Had Dara presented the truth instead of false information to sway the board's vote, perhaps she would have then been directed to tell the town's traffic consultant that the Planning Board wished to pursue the traffic matter.

Once more, we see the Planning Board making decisions based on fantasy, not fact, this time supplied by their planning specialist.

If that's how they want to do it, I guess they can.

For now.

94- Planners Have No Free Time

Last week's Planning Board meeting was punctuated by members' comments about how long it took to review the Woodstock Commons project. My favorite one was when David Corbett announced with disgust that he had not read a novel in three years.

Allan Duane argued that a delay in moving the project forward is in itself a valid reason NOT to study a traffic impact.

Following Allan's logic, I guess the planning board should have not have bothered to study anything, since the cost of any investigation is time passing. Especially traffic issues.

This particular decision concerned an extra five seconds idling at Routes 375 and 212. For a town that has pledged to be carbon neutral in the coming decade, this was a very poor decision.

93- Affordable Housing Committee - 4th of 4 comments

Before the Woodstock Affordable Housing Committee determined that the land behind Bradley Meadows was the best for affordable housing, they looked at a parcel in Zena. David Corbett, now on the Planning Board, led a group called Concerned Citizens of Zena. This group prepared a list of questions to the Town Board on Sept 2, 2003. I will reproduce some of the questions here, with comments.

10. What alternatives to this proposal have been explored to provide affordable housing? (For instance, why doesn't the town encourage renovations of existing buildings into low income apartments by offering tax incentives? Or buy properties that have been assumed by the county due to tax default and then recycle those into low income housing?)

Comment: Well, I would probably choose a word other than "recycle," but apart from that, good question, well stated. I wonder why David Corbett is no longer asking this question. Oh yeah, because RUPCO was invited to Woodstock to provide housing in the town's "last chance" for affordable housing. Seriously, what happened to these two other alternatives? And why are they even called alternatives? These three types of affordable housing are not mutually exclusive. Answers still pending, I guess.

19. How does the town plan to address the profound impact of such a large and congested development in an outlying area on our already hard-pressed town services?

20. Subsidized housing will still require full town services but by definition, not be taxed at a rate to cover them. Will the other taxpayers of Woodstock be required to make up the difference?

Comment: These two questions certainly sound as though David and his group are not in favor of affordable housing's consequences on them as Woodstockers. Magically, these are no longer concerns once the project is moved away from their neighborhood.

Final Question: Doesn't this require some sort of vote?

Comment: This question is obviously visceral, not based in any knowledge of procedure? It is a desperate reach for control. Now that the project is no longer in David's neighborhood, and he is on the planning board, guess whose seven votes are the only ones that matter.

92- Affordable Housing Committee on Accessory Apartments

August 4, 2003: Seems like a long time ago, but between then and now, nearly seven years, and I have not heard about any affordable housing built in Woodstock. On that night, the Woodstock Affordable Housing Committee met and according to the meeting minutes, Paul Shultis Jr. "requested our approval of a tax exemption for residents who create an accessory apt. and charge an affordable housing rent. No decision reached."

Interesting. I think it is a decent idea, at least one worth looking at again. Times are tougher now, perhaps there might be more people interested in creating accessory apartments on their properties.

It seems to me that the unpopularity of this option in Woodstock is evidence of widespread NIMBYism. Those with the most land and the most money certainly do not want anybody else living close to their houses. It is preferable for the wealthy to have some centralized project somewhere, as long as that somewhere is far away from them. If enough people make accessory apartments, and affordable housing is integrated into the community, there would not be a need to construct a ghetto of affordable housing.

The word ghetto is very controversial. A ghetto is defined as a region of a city where a population is segregated based on racial or economic separation. Also, the Jews of early twentieth century Europe lived in religious ghettos. Ghettos encourage segregation, not integration.

Paul Shultis Jr. had the right idea.

91- More Affordable Housing Committee Review

Tonight we will take a look at the second of four aspects of the Woodstock Affordable Housing Committee Work: their summary of work, in a letter to the Town Board, April 19, 2004.

The letter begins by introducing the letter's contents as a summary of the past year's work of the Affordable Housing Committee of the Town of Woodstock. It continues: "This report was prepared in an effort to clarify what has been done to date and what, in our opinion, needs to be done in the future if an affordable housing project will be accomplished in the Town of Woodstock."

The letter is a decent one, and I am not here to criticize the committee's work in any way. The letter describes three different types of affordable housing that Woodstock could develop. The first is a set of "revisions to the Zoning Ordinance Local Law to more easily allow the creation of attached and detached accessory apartments on existing residential parcels." Sounds good to me. How's that going, six years later? This is a real question. How's that working out?

Most of the letter reviewed five sites for a large affordable housing project, which is the second type of affordable housing. The letter states that the St. John property, which is where RUPCO is trying to develop its current project, in in the committee's opinion, the site with the most potential. The first stated reason for this opinion, continues the letter, is that its location would allow hook-up to the town sewer system and municipal water supply.

Oops. If the property is in the hamlet sewer district, then why does that property pay taxes to a different sewer district and not to the hamlet sewer district? I don't know about you, but I conclude that the property is not in the hamlet sewer district and therefore does not have the right to connect.

But let us move on.

The third type of affordable housing "would be to identify structures around Town which might be rehabilitated and converted to affordable housing. However, this has not been done to date." Hey, great idea. Well, six years later, has this been done? Have any structures around Town that might be rehabilitated actually been rehabilitated, and made into affordable housing? Anybody?

Well, I haven't heard about it if it happened.

So there you go. The affordable housing committee recommended that older buildings be rehabilitated. Guess what: there is still time. I mentioned this option in my talk about RUPCO in February, at the community center. That aspect of my talk was not covered in the newspaper article about the presentation.

What else can I say? I suppose I can simply take note and wait to share this unacted upon advice to anybody who says that Woodstock Commons is the ONLY and LAST chance for affordable housing in Woodstock.

No problem. I'll file that away with everything else.

More affordable housing committee goodies over the weekend.

90- Affordable Housing Committee Mission Statement (a)

This is the first of four posts about the Woodstock Affordable Housing Committee's Work, 2003-2004.

Affordable Housing Committee Mission Statement:

This mission statement was produced as a result of a freedom of information law request. There is no date on it, but it can be assumed that it was produced in 2003 or 2004, since that is the time period that all of the other documents were produced, and it seems to be when the committee met.

"The purpose of the Woodstock Affordable Housing Committee is to find information and make recommendations to the Woodstock Town Board with respect to the Town's role in facilitating affordable housing in the Town of Woodstock. The committee should look to a variety of housing types to accommodate the varying needs of Woodstock residents including but not necessarily limited to seniors, starting artists and young families."

What strikes me about this mission statement is that it refers to the needs of "Woodstock residents." This means that the committee existed to serve the needs of actual residents of Woodstock. It does not mean that it was supposed to define the needs of existing residents of Woodstock, and then serve the needs of people just like them but from other towns. No, the mission was to serve the needs of people living in Woodstock. It was not to grow the town. It was not to diversify the town. It was not to attract new business such as housing developers. It was not to make a political nightmare.

The mission statement goes on to read that the committee should investigate sources of funding at all levels of government, and then presents "Areas for initial investigation" and these "areas" are comprised of a list starting with the number 1. The problem is that this list also ends with the number 1, and the number 1 is the St. John's parcel, which is where RUPCO now is proposing to build Woodstock Commons.

Hmmm. Sort of sounds like the mission statement was written after all the work to eliminate all the other sites was already completed, huh?

Plus there is no date on the mission statement.

Well, anyway, nobody is perfect. Ahem. Moving on. The committee writes in the mission statement that it is part of the mission to look at the prospects of this parcel. The "further considerations" are listed, curiously, by letter:

a.

b.

c.

d.

e.

a.

b.

c.

I'm not kidding.

Anyway, the second "a." on the list reads: "Research the impact of such a development on special district (water and sewer) infrastructure, services and taxes."

OK, so was this done? Hardly. The only thing that was done was to estimate the demand for water and to figure that generally, the town's capacity to provide water was greater than the estimated demand from this project. Thing is, in a town with water flowing in a specific configuration of pipes, it actually matters WHERE you put the 53 new residences.

NO estimate of the demand in the specific neighborhood was made. No simulation was performed. In fact, in the DEIS, there was, presented so nicely, a simulation, in great detail, of a previous expansion of water service. What this shows is that the water district serves more people now than it used to. Basically, that simulation only shows that the district was expanded once, not that it can be further expanded without compromise to water pressure, in the same region.

Here is the situation in the water district: Currently, there are about 25 houses supplied with water from one six inch pipe. RUPCO wants to add 53 residences to the same six inch supply pipe.

The standards to which New York subscribes, called the Ten States Standards, requires "normal" water pressure to be between 60 and 80 psi, but in no case lower than 35. I measured my water pressure, and keep in mind that my house is right off the main, and the first time I measured it, it was 36 or 37 psi. That is dangerously close to the minimum pressure. I would bet that a simulation of Woodstock Commons water demand would show the neighborhood pressure falling well below 35 psi. That would be a problem, for the town, actually. Substandard water pressure? I don't think so.

The DEIS also does state that there will be a substandard water pressure for firefighting purposes, but that is a whole different category, not a day to day problem. We will get to that later.

Another problem with this mission statement is that it assumes that Woodstock Commons is actually eligible to hook up to the hamlet water and sewer systems. Iris York pointed out that the property currently pays taxes to a different sewer district, and so that, by definition, means that it is in a different district, and ineligible to hook up to the hamlet sewer system. This is important because it means that the project will have to dig its own septic system.

The town should have made sure that the project was eligible to hook up to the water and sewer districts prior to the future, which is when it will dawn on the town that this is not the case. I am sure that nobody will care what I say, but eventually my research will feed a legal argument. I am gathering documents, making a record, and will make it very easy to present all of this to a judge. That's where this looks like it is going, and I'm going to see it all the way through.

89- Hi, I'm Back from a Trip to the Past

Over the last couple of weeks, I have taken a break from the particulars of RUPCO in Bradley Meadows to consider the long view of affordable housing in Woodstock, which requires a study of the past. One of the things I did was go up to the Town Clerk's office, where they are always helpful and friendly, by the way, and request, and receive, all of the available documents produced by the Affordable Housing Committee that eventually invited RUPCO to town to develop the property currently under consideration for an affordable housing project.

I want to start to tell you about what the Woodstock Affordable Housing Committee did in 2003 and 2004, and what it recommended to the town, before it disbanded. I divide my report into four distinct areas:

a. mission statement

b. summary of work, letter to Town Board, April 19, 2004

c. accessory apartments effort

d. The concerned citizens of Zena

I have lots of goodies to share, but alas, today is already booked. I'll be back with succulent details later tonight or later this week.