Ridge Development Faces Opposition
By Janie Fichter, Managing Editor
SUNY New Paltz lies roughly 10 miles from what the Nature Conservancy has called "one of the last great places" on the planet. Soon, it may be "one of the last great places" with a golf course and a suburban community.
The breathtaking backdrop to New Paltz and other surrounding towns, the Shawangunk Ridge Mountains, is being subject to a development plan that will put a proposed 321 home community, an 18-hole golf course and a wastewater treatment plant on a 2,660 acre piece of the land. While the developers of the proposed plan say that the development will be environmentally safe, local residents and politicians remain disgruntled and skeptical.
"This project provides a clear example of suburban sprawl, inappropriate land use and degradation of critical natural resources," said Sen. Maurice D. Hinchey, D-Saugerties, in a Feb. 6 letter to Gardiner Town Supervisor Jack Hayes and the Gardiner Town Council.
"If this project is to set the standard for new smart growth in the region, as the developer maintains, the Hudson Valley is clearly in trouble," stated Hinchey in the letter.
The proposed homes are to be built on the Awosting Reserve, the privately owned property of John Bradely by Chaffin/Light Associates, a private developer. The developers told the Times Herald-Record on Feb. 10 that the community will "honor the rural lifestyles and mountain values of its host town." Eighty percent of the development will take place in Gardiner, a town south of New Paltz with a population of about 2,000.
On March 22, developers presented revised plans, reducing the number of house lots from 350 to 321 to help meet town zoning regulations. The revised layout "respects topography and wetlands," William Dodge, the senior managing engineer for Chazen Cos. and an adviser for the developers told the Daily Freeman.
An inspection of the site by the Gardiner town board of the project area is scheduled between April 15 and May 1. The state Department of Environmental Conservation will also be conducting a review process of the area.
Groups like Save the Gunks and Friends of the Shawangunks are vehemently opposed to any development of the area. Save the Gunks began a "save the ridge" petition that has obtained over 700 signatures. Both groups state that the area of proposed development will destroy over 260 acres of forest as well as threaten water supplies, wildlife, the local economics and the view. According to the Save the Gunks website, many environmental groups that have studied the area have noted that the Shawanagunk ridge is "home to plentiful wildlife and rare plants such as dwarf pines."
"This could have an horrendous impact on the ridge, depending on how its handled," Keith LaBudde, president of Friends of the Shawangunks told the Times Herald-Record on Oct. 30, 2002.
The gunks, as they are more popularly known, run 50 miles south and west from Ulster and through Orange and Sullivan Counties. They extend all the way to Rosendale, N.J. and are a series of ridges that sink into valleys. According to the Friends of the Shawangunks Website, the gunks are "part of the younger Appalachains, created during periods of uplift, folding and faulting." Only 58 percent of the 31,500 acres of the Northern Shawangunks are protected through direct ownership.
