136- That New York Times Article

Thanks to Peter Applebome for a good overview of a town in conflict.  While it is true that space limitations can be blamed for many omissions in a busy newspaper, I would like to point out the important fact that this blog began not because I was opposed to this housing project, but because the traffic study used seemed incomplete, and seemed to ignore what was and is, to the eye, and to any statistician, an unsafe intersection at the project's main access road.  I have shown the traffic study to be indeed manipulated to ignore car activity in that intersection.  I also have shown that the width of the access road is not as wide as the developer claimed, and narrower than universally used design standards.

I also have shown that RUPCO, the developer, intentionally misquoted a town official in the environmental impact statement's water supply section in order to have the town approve the project.  RUPCO also claimed that the project site is in the town water district, and in fact it lies outside the water district.  Later, through quite an effort, some citizens and a consulting hydrogeologist convinced the NY Department of Environmental Conservation that there is not necessarily enough water, and this is why the town now has to spend $100,000 on well testing.  That test would have been paid by RUPCO if the test had been ordered before the project had been approved by the town.

All this to say that my opposition, and this blog, began because of two SAFETY concerns: traffic and fire protection.  The New York Times article is fine, but as far as I am concerned, its referenced "errors and problems the planning process missed" that I found and wrote about, are life and death problems of ignored safety precautions, and trump anything else on the table.