The Poughkeepsie Journal invited the Coalition to author a guest column to share its concerns about the Dover Knolls DEIS for the redevelopment of the Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center.

– Please see the Editorial and Valley Views, June 28 2009

The accompanying Editorial offers what we consider to be a balanced view: it recognizes the importance of phasing and ensuring sufficient water capacity for both the project and the current residents, while at the same time encouraging the redevelopment of the site.  The author asks that the Town Board allow adequate time to weigh the serious issues while keeping the process moving.  Decisions the Town Board makes this year will have lasting effects long after this Town Board, the developer and the current residents are gone.

“The Town has every right, and obligation, to hold the developer to high standards, especially since this project is bound to have a major impact.”

The developer, Alvin Benjamin, was invited to write a guest column as well.

–Go to Article, Litchfield County Times, June 18, 2009

– Go to Article, Millbrook Independent, June 10, 2009

– Go to Editorial, Millbrook Independent,  June 10, 2009

A point of clarification: The Town Board did hire its own consultant as Town Planner, Graham Trelstad with AKRF, to advise them throughout the SEQRA process.

On April 29, 2009, the Dover Town Board accepted as complete the Dover Knolls Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS.) Residents, local and regional government officials, board and committee members, Interested Parties, neighbors and organizations from surrounding towns in NY and CT, are strongly encouraged to attend and comment on the DEIS at one or both sessions to be held at the Dover Middle/High School: Saturday, May 30th at 9am and Wednesday, June 3rd at 6:30 pm. Written comments may be submitted through June 13th.

We in Dover, Dutchess County and New York State have only one chance to get this project right. Our concerns encompass but are not limited to ensuring that:  1) local taxes don’t increase because of costs associated with an imbalance of residential options, additional school construction or wastewater facility upgrades and maintenance; 2) the Aquifer is not compromised by an unsupportable number of new residences; 3) the Great Swamp, the second largest wetlands in New York State, is not irreversibly compromised by inadequate wetlands boundary protection or an inappropriate Water and Wastewater Treatment Facility; 4) residential and commercial/retail construction is concentrated around the train station and on the existing footprint of the former Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center, thus minimizing traffic and impervious surfaces; 5) steep slopes are left untouched, thereby preserving our natural resources and the Appalachian Trail viewshed, and minimizing the effects of increased stormwater runoff.  

There is indeed much to review, and the Coalition will continue to offer input during this critically important process.

– Please see DEIS, Accepted as Complete by the Dover Town Board

Many town and county residents attended the Advanced Power (AP)  presentation at the Dover High School Wednesday night, May 20th during a special meeting convened for that purpose by the Dover Town Board.  The company proposes to construct and operate a 1000 megawatt power plant, Cricket Valley Energy (CVE,) in Dover, NY, west of Rt 22 and along the Great Swamp River.  

We have only recently learned of the proposal but the application process is proceeding quickly; AP has an option on the property and intends to file its application and begin the scoping process in June.  The benefits to the town and region are economic. The company estimates 500 local construction jobs and, once complete, revenues of $4mm a year, to be split with the County.  The drawbacks thus far appear to be environmental, with negative impacts potentially reaching far and wide.

While most of the cooling of the plant would rely on air condensers, the company estimates that between 250-275,000 gallons of water could be used daily.  Whether drawn from the Aquifer or from the bedrock below as AP proposes, this level of water consumption poses a great concern to residents who rely on the area’s water resources.

The chemical composition and direction of emissions from the three, 250-290 foot stacks will be of concern not only to residents of the Harlem Valley, but to those who live in the paths of the carrying winds.  Comparing the resultant air pollution of the proposed natural gas power plant favorably to that of a coal-fired electric power plant as AP did during the meeting seems to us to set up the wrong argument; the better comparison would be to our air quality as it is now.  A coal-fired plant would never have been proposed in the first place.

The 25-30 permanent jobs are estimated to last for about 30-40 years, as the estimated useful life of the plant is about 60 years. “It will be either re-used or torn down,” one of the members of the CVE team responded to a resident’s question.

“Any major project creates both economic benefits and environmental impacts, Town Supervisor Ryan Courtien said during the meeting.  The benefits include construction and post-construction jobs, increased tax revenues for the town, county and schools and increased local spending. The impacts include pollution, noise, change in landscape, traffic and more impervious surfaces.”

This impacts of this project should be considered in conjunction with the impacts of Dover Knolls and within the contexts of our Master Plan and the constraints of our water supply. One PoJo blogger suggested constructing windmills on our farmland: A low-impact power generation alternative that preserves open space and agriculture, our Greenway and wildlife corridor, without water or air pollution.  

– Poughkeepsie Journal Article May 11th, 2009

– Poughkeepsie Journal Article May 1, 2009

On April 29th, Supervisor Ryan Courtien led the Dover Town Board in passing Resolution #1142009 in Support of Biodiversity Mapping in the Town of Dover.

Hudsonia has mapped several towns in Dutchess County, most recently the Town of Amenia to our north.  With many towns left to map, we are honored and proud that Dover was selected by Hudsonia as the next to be inventoried. This study will inform land use decisions for generations to come; the results will help guide the Town and Planning Boards when faced with both strategic and pragmatic decisions, and should prove to be a valuable reference tool for developers and conservationists alike.

– Please see Resolution 

– Please see Hudsonia Presentation to the Town of Dover

Please see the attached Letter to the Dover Town Board, submitted last week in connection with a Board meeting dealing with the Town’s proposed Restore NY funding application. The application is for funding to demolish two buildings on the Dover Knolls property. It was read into the record by Town Board Member Richard Hawthorne. 

CRGD reiterates an ongoing concern, stated previously during the Scoping Sessions and during Town Board discussions of the Stimulus Funds Application, over the possibility of on-site burial of C&D and therefore the possible contamination of our water supply.  We believe that the Town should maintain control and supervision over the expenditure of all Restore NY funds obtained in connection with the demolition of buildings:  ”the Town Board can and should insist that any Restore NY funds obtained be spent to ensure that all demolition project materials be taken off-site and that nothing be left on-site or back-filled in the tunnels.”

– CRGD Letter to the Dover Town Board April 29, 2009

CRGD would like to see a true “transit oriented development”  take shape on the site of the former Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center.  ”Wing Station” concentrates construction close to the train station. Compared to the Dover Knolls proposal, the Wing Station draft plan lowers the actual and carbon footprint, mitigates the effect of stormwater runoff, reduces Vehicle Miles Travelled, (a best practices metric of energy efficiency,) does not build on steep slopes in keeping with best practices in Dutchess County, and leaves a wider berth for the environmentally sensitive lands of the Great Swamp, a NYS DEC Critical Envrionmental Area.  

We would like to see the Benjamin Companies work closely with Dutchess County Planning and one of our Land Conservancies to bring the Dover Knolls proposal more in line with the Wing Station Draft Illustrative Sketch Plan prepared for the Town of Dover in March, 2005.

– Please see Wing Station

CRGD President Carolyn Handler recently added to the Dover Town Board’s discussion and debate of the completeness of the Dover Knolls DEIS. The Coalition notes that the Town Board was under no legal obligation to make the document available to the public and appreciates the openness with which Supervisor Courtien has chosen to conduct the review.

In a letter dated February 11th, addressed to Supervisor Courtien and members of the Town Board, Handler begins with acknowledging this process:

“CRGD recognizes that the formal public comment period for the DEIS will not begin until the Town Board determines the DEIS to be substantively complete and thereafter schedules a public hearing to receive comments. We also note that the Town Board made the DEIS available to the public on the Town’s website not long after it was filed by the Applicant on Christmas Eve, having rightly concluded that given the complexity and size of the Proposed Project, the public should begin the process of familiarizing itself with the contents of the DEIS at the earliest juncture– even though, as we recognize, the DEIS is currently undergoing revision as a result of the Town Board’s own completeness review as lead agency.” Read the rest of this entry »

A number of Town Board and special meetings have been held to review the Dover Knolls Preliminary DEIS for completeness. Working closely with input from Town Planner  Graham Trelsted from AKRF, the Board is accepting comments as to omissions that would cause the DEIS to be declared incomplete. This is not a time for comments on DEIS, only as to what needs to be revised or submitted by the Applicant before the Town Board declares the DEIS complete and thereby begins the public review and comment period.  CRGD did submit comments on February 11, 2009 which are a matter of public record and which are available here.  

Some of the public discussions were reported by Harlem Valley Time reporter Jen Barry in her article published on January 30, 2009. 

– Please go to the Harlem Valley TImes, “Dover Knolls prelim plan before Town Board”

The Town of Dover and the Dover Knolls Development Company (Dover Knolls) created a Joint Public-Private Partnership to apply for federal stimulus funds to aid in the demolition of abandoned buildings on the site of the former Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center (HVPC) in WIngdale, NY. The property is owned by Dover Knolls, and the developer is currently engaged in the SEQRA process having filed a preliminary DEIS on December 24, 2008.  A Draft Application for stimulus funds was submitted on February 2, 2009, to the Town for review and is linked below.

The partnership is seeking approximately $20mm in federal stimulus funds to demolish 11 buildings. The proposed benefits are threefold: Dover would get a jumpstart on the eventual teardown of buildings identified as not worthy of rehabilitation and which many residents consider eyesores; an estimated 355 jobs would be created in Dover for local and regional residents; the developer would save $20mm of already budgeted Construction and Demolition (C&D) costs to raze these buildings and dispose of the debris.

CRGD has always been concerned with on-site burial of HVPC C&D debris given the presence of asbestos and lead paint, and the existence of the area’s water supply so close by. Given the haste with which stimulus funds (if obtained) must be spent, and considering that the Dover Knolls DEIS is still under SEQRA review, CRGD has requested the Town Board declare all C&D debris associated with this Application to be “environmentally suspect” and make arrangements for disposal off-site.  

We reiterated these concerns to Congressman John Hall at a public forum in the Town of Beekman, NY, on February 21, 2009.  CRGD suggests that to the extent funds are made available for this project, the Joint Partnership reapportion some of the cost of demolition to cover the cost of removing all associated C&D debris. 

– The Preliminary Application under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 for Local Infrastructure Project; Demolition of Abandoned Buildings at the Former Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center (HVPC); A Pubic-Private Partnership between the Town of Dover, NY and the Dover Knolls Development Company II, LLC 

– Please see Harlem Valley Times article by Jen Barry, “Dover to apply for federal stimulus aid”   covering the Town Board meeting on January 28th, 2009 to discuss the Application.

Dover Town Planner Graham Trelstad “cautioned residents not to assume that because the document was available for consumption that the Town Board had signed off on any part of the document at this point”. Reporter Jen Barry does a nice job in her article, posted below, summarizing Town Planner Trelstad’s presentation.

— Please see The Harlem Valley Times article. 

A bit of history on Graham Trelsted’s firm,  AKRF , and why we think intermunicipal input and collaboration on these larger development projects is so important:

AKRF is working on many noteworthy projects in our region; close to home is one in which they are “developing an intermunicipal overlay zoning district to preserve biodiversity for several Westchester municipalities.”

Many residents, municipal officials and envrionmentalists in the Harlem Valley towns along the Rt 22 Corridor would like to see an intermunicipal approach to water, waste water and biodiversity issues. This coordination is especially critical between Dover and Pawling because we share the aquifer and the Great Swamp, and the Pawling Sewage Treatment plant discharges into the north flow of the Great Swamp River which flows through Wingdale into the Ten Mile River and on into the Housatonic.

While the plant still has capacity, bringing Wind Rose and Dover Knolls on line will require a coordinated effort between the two towns toward water supply and sewage treatment and discharge.  The Pawling and Dover Planning Boards should coordinate on any projects that propose to disharge treated waste into the Great Swamp River; as more towns in Pawling and south pipe waste to the Pawling plant, development projects in Dover may be curtailed. Working together on Wind Rose will provide a process template for the Planning Boards going forward.

Collaboration matters. The Coalition calls upon our elected officials, the Planning Boards, and the Pawling Conservation Advisory Board and the Dover Conservation Advisory Committee to work together to guard and preserve our natural resources while encouraging sensitive development and economic growth.

The Coalition held its first fundraiser and membership drive on Saturday, November 1, 2008, at Old Drover’s Inn in Dover, NY. Thanks to the volunteers from  Dover, Wingdale and Pawling, and neighboring towns in  NY and CT. 

Please see article from the Harlem Valley Times

Please click here to view the flier

Attached please find Scoping Comments from Carolyn B. Handler, President of the Coalition of the Responsible Growth of Dover 

Wind Rose Scoping Comments from the Coalition for the Responsible Growth of Dover

Wind Rose Draft Scoping Document

 The Coalition for the Responsible Growth of Dover (CRGD) today announced an end to its recent lawsuit against the Town of Dover.  CRGD now considers the case to be moot in view of the Town Board’s decision on August 6, 2008 to remove that provision of Local Law #1 which expanded the reach of the MC Overlay District to include properties beyond the boundaries of the former Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center (HVPC).  In taking steps to amend Local Law #1, the Town Board recognizes that there is no presumption in favor of expanding the MC Overlay District.

 The lawsuit had alleged that the Town Board violated the New York State Municipal Home Rule Law by failing to provide adequate public notice of the proposed text, and failing to have the final text of the law on the desks of the Town Board members at least seven days prior to its adoption.  The lawsuit also alleged the Town Board violated the General Municipal Law and the Town’s own Zoning Law by not including the proposed change in the draft of the law sent to the Dutchess County Planning Board and the Dover Planning Board for review.

“Now that the lawsuit is favorably resolved, CRGD looks forward to working with the Town Board to assure a good outcome with the Dover Knolls development,” said CRGD President, Carolyn Handler. She added,  “CRGD is not interested in legal wins, but only in sound planning and transparency.  We are glad that the outcome of the lawsuit preserves the status quo, which was all that was desired at the time it was commenced.  We will work to ensure that the Dover Knolls project concentrates on the core area of the HVPC with a high density development and that any development beyond the HVPC is lower density and occurs only after the core is developed consistent the with long established goals of the Town.”

The Town Board passed a law removing the language which we opposed because that language had not been properly noticed.

While we are eager to see the project proceed, we want to assure due process is respected and the appropriate agencies, towns and property holders receive the notices they are due according to municipal law. There are good reasons for proper notifications and on a project of this magnitude, it is all the more important that the Town of Dover follow the rules and procedures put in place  by the Town, the County and the State and not cut any corners.  

— Go to article

The scoping sessions will be held on Thursday, September 11th in Pawling, and Saturday, September 13th in Dover.  

— Go to article