Milan Insider

YOUR LAST CHANCE TO COMMENT ON THE DURST/CARVEL PROJECT!

The fifth and final public hearing on the Durst/Carvel Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS)
will be held on Saturday, April 5th at 9:30 a.m. at Stissing Mountain High School (Route 199 in Pine Plains).

Let the Pine Plains Planning Board know how you feel about this massive golf resort community!

What the project will mean to Milan:

*951 new homes on the former Carvel property – That’s like putting a whole other Milan right next door, but on just 2200 acres
* Increased costs that won’t be offset by increased tax revenue – In fact, this project will end up costing Milan in excess of $100,00 a year as it’s now proposed
*Increased school and property taxes – This is a strong possibility despite what the developer claims
*Increased pressure on volunteer emergency services that will likely drive taxes up even more
*Increased traffic and congestion on local roads
*Serious environmental damage from habitat destruction and fragmentation
*Suburban sprawl – Suburban-style design, suburban-style houses, suburban-style population density

Your community and quality of life are at serious risk from this project!

To learn more about the issues, see below for our detailed reports on the previous hearings. You can read the full DEIS here

It’s a very long and complex document, but the executive summary is a good overview.
Take a look.

Outside consultants from the citizens’ group Pine Plains United have reviewed the DEIS and drawn up critiques pointing out very serious flaws. Other organizations and individuals have commented as well. We discuss and link to these important documents in the hearing reports. Here’s a quick list of the most important:

* Letter from Dutchess County Department of Planning and Development here
* James Sheldon comments from LittleTownViews.com
*Camoin Associates review of fiscal impacts.
The document here
* Environmental Simulation Center review of visual impacts here and here
* ELAN Associates comments on land use and zoning (chapter 3) and community character and visual impacts (chapter 7) Take a look
*Lauren Kingman’s comment

Your attendance at the hearing sends a strong message to the Pine Plains Planning Board and to the Durst Organization. If you can’t be there—and even if you do attend—you can send written comment to:
Pine Plains Planning Board
Town Hall
3284 Route 199
Pine Plains NY 12567
pineplainspb@yahoo.com

The deadline for written comment is May 5. After the April 5 hearing we’ll post some suggested points to make in your letter.

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Cool Stuff...Update on the
Second Durst DEIS Hearing

(Mouse over picture for sneak peek!)

At the second Durst DEIS hearing on February 29, George Janes, AICP, Executive Director of the nonprofit Environmental Simulation Center (check them out at www.simcenter.org), gave a very revealing (literally) presentation. It showed what the real visual impacts of the Carvel project would be and demolished the bogus photo simulations shown in the DEIS. You can read his report here and see his very cool photo simulations here .

Here’s what he says at the beginning of the report: “The photosimulations presented in the DEIS do not accurately disclose the proposal’s impact on visual resources. They have not been performed according to the accepted standards for photosimulation in the environmental review process. They should NOT be used as evidence as to the project’s impacts on visual resources, as they do not accurately depict the action proposed. Since the Scoping Document called for photosimulations, and since the photosimulations produced do not accurately depict the proposed
development’s impact on visual resources, the Lead Agency should require the Applicant to produce additional materials that fully disclose those impacts.”

Report on Durst Public Hearings
Three and Four

Before going into the details: First, apologies for taking so long—a living occasionally needs to be earned. Second, to correct an error: Helena and Alexander Durst are sister and brother, not cousins as erroneously stated elsewhere on this site.

The Milan Public Hearing, March 6

The third public hearing on the Durst DEIS was held in Milan Town Hall on March 6. Turnout from Milan residents was very disappointing. We should have packed Town Hall, but instead the seats were half empty. Maybe we’re doing too good a job on covering these hearings—people figure they don’t have to come to find out what’s happening—but in fact your presence is extremely important. By attending the hearings you can learn about the project for yourself and hear the presentations from both the Durst consultants and the consultants brought in by citizen organizations such as Pine Plains United and Scenic Hudson. You also have the opportunity to hear valuable public comment from other citizens and comment yourself.

Fortunately, you’ll have one last chance to attend a public hearing. The Pine Plains Planning Board, in response to the many requests they received, has scheduled a final hearing for SATURDAY, April 5, starting at 9:30 a.m. in Pine Plains at Stissing Mountain High School on Route 199. If you haven’t been able to get to the earlier hearings because they’ve all been on weeknights, now’s your chance to be there in person. It’s our understanding that at this hearing there will presentations by Durst and also by experts from PPU and Scenic Hudson. (We’ll update you as the date gets closer.) Please, people, try to be there—it’s important.

And a reminder: You can see the complete DEIS document here. It’s very long, but reading the executive summary will give you a good overview of the issues. (Download it here)
Whether or not you can attend, please make every effort to send your written comments to the Pine Plains Planning Board so that they can become part of the permanent record of the hearings. You can email them at pineplainspb@yahoo.com or send written comment to them at Town Hall, 3284 Route 199, Pine Plains NY 12567. The deadline for written comment is May 5. We’ll have some suggestions on the issues you might want to address once the last hearing is over.

What Happened at the Milan Hearing

The public hearing in Milan on March 6 was in two parts. The first part, starting at 5 p.m., was billed as a two-hour special session to take comment from emergency response personnel, particularly as they related to chapter 14, Community Services and Fiscal Impacts, of the DEIS. This session, to the evident surprise of the PPPB and the Durst representatives, was poorly attended. Disappointingly, Greg Becker, chief of the Milan volunteer fire department, was unable to attend. He plans to submit written comment (we’ll share that with you when it’s available). For unknown reasons, his Pine Plains counterpart wasn’t there either. We didn’t note anyone from the local or state police. They may have been there, but if they were they didn’t say anything. Milan resident Evelyn Bartin, a member of the rescue squad, did make a statement on her own behalf—see it here. She pointed out that the local volunteer responders are already stretched to the breaking point and beyond, and that this project will only add to the burden. (Imagine the number of false burglar and fire alarms alone that can be anticipated from 951 high-end homes occupied only part of the time.)

The DEIS states that the project will involved the creation of approximately 60,000 linear feet of new roads; about 6,000 feet of this will be in Milan. Dan Stone, the Durst project engineer, is proud of his single-crown road design because it will require less disturbance (although the roads have no sidewalks). However, as Glenn Butler, Milan Highway Superintendent, pointed out, the design calls for roads that are 20 feet wide, but Milan requires them to be 22 feet wide. Glenn also said he would be submitting written comments. A few other speakers briefly brought up emergency services issues. Jane Waters, a member of the steering committee of Pine Plains United, brought up the “mitigation” measure suggested in chapter 14: going to paid fire and ambulance service. She expressed substantial doubt that the tax revenue from the project would cover the costs of this, including salaries, equipment, and capital expenses for new structures and vehicles. The additional expenses would be largely borne by the local communities.

Planning Board Chair Don Bartles then asked if there was any additional comment from anyone else, such as the Conservation Advisory Council. Although George Lawrence, chair of the Milan CAC, was present, he said nothing. There was no comment from the Pine Plains CAC (we’re not sure if anyone from that group was present). The hearing was then recessed at the unexpectedly early hour of 5:30. When asked afterward why he hadn’t said anything, Mr. Lawrence responded that he was still studying the issue. We’re very surprised by this. Mr. Lawrence is an environmental engineer and claims to be very familiar with environmental issues. Why would someone with his experience need three months to study the relevant chapters and draw the obvious conclusions, especially when he has four other CAC members to help out? (The environmental issues are discussed mostly in chapters 8 and 9.)

The hearing resumed at 7 p.m. Milan Town Supervisor Dick Barrett, a Republican, welcomed the participants and introduced Chair Bartles. In all, Supervisor spoke for less than a minute—the only words he uttered in public all evening.

Republican Town Supervisor Dick Barrett welcomes the participants to Milan Town Hall at the Durst DEIS hearing on March 6. He spoke for less than a minute, sat down, and said nothing else the entire evening.

At least he and Republican Town Board member Bobbie Egan managed to attend the session held in their own town hall. They did not attend the two earlier sessions in Pine Plains, and they weren’t at the fourth session in Pine Plains on March 6 either. Missing was Republican Town Board member David Byrne, who is apparently away on military duty (he did attend the first two sessions). Democratic Town Board members Diane May and Ross Williams were present, as they have been at all other hearings. Planning Board Chair Al LoBrutto was also present.

The proceedings began with the usual formalities from the Planning Board and then moved on to a statement from Matt Rudikoff of Matthew D. Rudikoff Associates, the planner for Durst. That’s when things got interesting. Mr. Rudikoff launched into a highly inappropriate attack on Milan’s wetlands protection law as a way of justifying the Durst lawsuit against it. The gist of the argument seemed to be that the law is flawed. We’re not lawyers any more than Matt Rudikoff is, but the law isn’t so much flawed as just very inconvenient for the Dursts. It’s particularly inconvenient after the presentation by Dr. Michael Klemens at the second public hearing on February 29. That’s when he showed what the project should look like if it truly took the environment into account. In fact, Dr. Klemens’s design looks a lot as the project would look if Pine Plains had Milan’s wetlands protection law. In our opinion, the Dursts see the proposed zoning law in Pine Plains as bad enough. If that law were then backed up, as it should be, by a strong wetlands protection law, the Dursts would really have to scale back the project—and make less money from it.

The Dursts frequently tell us how environmentally responsible they are, but they’re really just pouring on the greenwash. A firm that was truly green and truly interested in being a good neighbor would respect Milan’s wetlands protection law and work within it, not try to overturn it.

Mr. Rudikoff’s remarks were inappropriate for another reason as well. The purpose of a public hearing is the hearing part—it’s not a question-and-answer session and the hearing is not the place for responses to criticism or statements that aren’t directly relevant to the DEIS. At the hearing on February 29, Mr. Rudikoff used his opening statement to attack the critical letter sent by Dutchess County Department of Planning and Development and to point out that an apology had been received from Roger Akeley, head of the department. (See here for the Akeley letter. Mr. Akeley apologizes for the tone, but he sticks to his guns on the criticism.) That was inappropriate enough, but to use his opening statement on March 6 to make an attack that couldn’t be rebutted in turn was even worse. We were very surprised that Chair Bartles didn’t cut him off, and we were even more surprised that Supervisor Barrett simply sat there. It was left to Milan resident Bill May to rise and interrupt Mr. Rudikoff in mid-rant, pointing out how inappropriate his behavior was, at which point Mr. Rudikoff stopped.

Next up was Dan Stone of The Chazen Companies, the project engineer for the Dursts. He made the same basic PowerPoint presentation extolling the merits of the project that he has made at earlier hearings. We admire his ability to do this with enthusiasm after so many repetitions.

The hearing went on from there with public comment. Lauren Kingman, the former chair of the Milan Planning Board, made a statement based on his long experience with this project. He started by pointing out that the DEIS is more advocacy than the analysis it should be. He then said, “The Project’s preferred development plan for Milan bears little resemblance to any plan that would conform to Milan regulations and would never get sketch endorsement in its current form. The plan calls for many more homes than current regulations would support, much of the identified open space does not qualify as open space under Milan codes, the homes are located in the currently undisturbed areas, separate parcels are improperly aggregated for calculations and layout, and so on. We have met several times with the Project team and they have been intransigent in their position. They have conceded nothing except to note in the DEIS those areas that Milan does not agree with. They propose that new zoning will provide them the density they want and have implied that legal actions will secure the rest.” (You can read his full statement here.)

Democratic Town Board member Ross Williams spoke to five main issues: open space,
green development, population and affordable housing, viability of the project, and
Durst conduct. (Until the Town Board fell into Republican hands, Mr. Williams was one of Milan’s ex officio representatives to the Pine Plains Planning Board. He has been working on the Durst project for several years and is very familiar with it.) He reiterated many of the points others have made about the basic design, pointing out that the project resembles suburban sprawl much more than it does any attempt to be environmentally responsible and fit into a rural landscape. One of his most important points concerned Durst conduct. Mr. Williams stated, “In preparing this DEIS the applicant has shown an insistence to do things only their way. . . . In addition, they fought vigorously to avoid some of the required environmental studies on sensitive species; they objected for months to fully completing the archeological review that had been committed at the beginning of the project. Only after the Pine Plains Planning Board made it clear that it would stand its ground did the applicant complete the work, which did result in some changes to the plan. As is evident in the DEIS, they have refused to acknowledge Milan’s zoning constraints on their plans.” (You can see his complete statement here.)

The next speaker was Democratic Town Board member Diane May. She specifically addressed the issue of affordable housing, a thorny problem for all communities in our area. As she pointed out in her statement, “When I read the DEIS and Durst’s promotional materials, I note 90 new jobs will be created with completion of the project, yet there is no real discussion of the need for affordable housing. Where do you think these 90 people will live? The DEIS states: ‘The proposed action will not generate a demand for new affordable housing or lessen the likelihood that affordable housing could be built in the hamlets or rural areas.’ Milan already has a limited stock of affordable housing; to add more residents and to dismiss their housing requirements is unacceptable.” She also said, “The DEIS contemplates affordable housing as Alternative 8, but dismisses the issue because ‘affordable housing would not blend well into the proposed vacation and second home recreation community.’ Please note affordable housing is NOT subsidized housing--it is where our workforce and volunteers live and it does blend in if you actually provide for its inclusion.” (You can see her complete statement here.)

The Durst attitude toward affordable housing and the workers who would live in it seems to be that the uber-affluent people in their golf resort community shouldn’t have to look at or even think about the lowly serfs who maintain it. And they certainly shouldn’t have to do anything to help provide someplace decent where they can live on their minimum wages. In fact, according to Durst, these people won’t generate any need for affordable housing at all—they’ll all just magically appear when it’s time to start work and disappear again at the end of their shifts.

As the public hearing continued, we waited for Republican Town Supervisor Barrett and Republican Town Board member Bobbie Egan to say something—anything—about the project. They simply sat there and didn’t say a word. Their silence was an insult to the citizens of Milan. This project will have huge impacts on our rural community, our taxes, our emergency services, and our quality of life. At a public hearing on a major issue in their own Town Hall, these two elected representatives couldn’t manage to comment at all. Could it be that Dick Barrett and Bobbie Egan, both licensed real estate agents, are more concerned about their future business dealings with Durst than they are about the people they claim to represent? Given that other Town Board members have been outspoken in their objections to the project, it’s hard to draw any other conclusion.

After additional comment from some other members of the audience, the hearing was concluded at around 9 p.m.

The Fourth Hearing, Pine Plains, March 6

The fourth public hearing on the Durst DEIS was held in Pine Plains on March 6, once again in the school cafeteria with its unusually hard chairs. The hearing was well attended, with about 120 people. Present from Milan were Democratic Town Board members Ross Williams and Diane May. Absent as usual were Republican Town Supervisor Dick Barrett and Republican Town Board member Bobbie Egan; Republican Town Board member David Byrne was absent as well, apparently on military duty. Jack Grumet, Chair of the Milan Zoning Board of Appeals, was present.

The hearing opened with the usual preliminaries. After the debacle at the hearing in Milan, Matt Rudikoff wisely chose (or was told) not to make an opening statement. There was also no presentation by the applicant, so the hearing moved directly to public comment. The first speakers were once again the experts hired by Pine Plains United, and they were once again excellent.

First up was Lisa Nagle, AICP, of Elan Planning and Design in Saratoga Springs. Ms. Nagle gave a presentation focusing on chapter 3, Land Use and Zoning, and chapter 7, Community Character, of the DEIS. In summary: The DEIS is not compatible with the Pine Plains Comprehensive Plan, not compatible with existing Pine Plains land use law, and not compatible with Pine Plain’s proposed zoning. Among other things, the DEIS conveniently neglects to discuss comprehensive plan goals that aren’t favorable to Durst, quotes the comprehensive plan out of context, and doesn’t come close to fulfilling the goals of the comprehensive plan. The density of the project, for example, is far too high, and over half the proposed housing units are in existing conservation and agricultural districts. (We hope to bring you a link soon to this very revealing presentation.)

Next up was Michael N’dolo, MPA, of Camoin Associates, an economics consulting firm based in Saratoga Springs. He was hired by Pine Plains United to perform a peer review of chapter 14, Economic and Fiscal Impacts, of the DEIS. A peer review looks at the data, assumptions, and methods used to draw the conclusions and assesses their validity. Once again the results weren’t very positive for Durst. Mr. N’dolo found numerous omissions and material errors that render the chapter and its conclusions (which are, needless to say, positive for Durst) invalid. His recommendation to the Pine Plains Planning Board? Reject this chapter and insist of substantial revisions. Interestingly, PPU’s previous economic consultant, Hudson Associates, made very much the same objections to the preliminary version of this chapter back in 2006. Although these objections were given to Durst, the current chapter continues to ignore the material deficiencies pointed out then and basically restates the same flawed arguments. You can see the whole report here.

Mr. N’dolo recommends rejecting the chapter because he says it doesn’t contain enough information for the public to make informed comment on it. He pointed out seven major material deficiencies:
1. Durst presents only their preferred rosy scenario of 90 percent part-time and 10 percent full-time residents. A more realistic scenario, such as a 50-50 split isn’t discussed, though it should be. The difference in the cost implications for the towns could run into the millions.
2. The costs of adding full-time police service are not adequately represented. The capital cost of adding new facilities isn’t included.
3. The costs of transitioning from a volunteer fire and rescue service to a full-time paid service are not adequately represented.
4. The calculation used to determine the cost to the Pine Plains Department of Public Works for maintaining the six miles or so of new roads is incorrect. It’s based on the number of full-time residents, not on new road miles. The costs are substantially understated.
5. The additional capital costs to the Department of Public Works are substantial but are not addressed.
6. The costs to the school district were patently wrong. It’s a complex calculation, but the gist of it is that the combined wealth ratio (CWR) of the community, which is based on property values, will go up when 951 high-end houses are built on expensive lots. As the CWR goes up, state aid to the school district goes down. The CWR in the DEIS is significantly understated, which means that the loss of state aid to the district is understated as well—potentially by millions of dollars.
7. The case studies of budget items related to debt service and capital costs for comparable towns once a “master-planned resort communities” is built are seriously flawed. These items could actually raise anticipated expenditures by the towns of Milan and Pine Plains by 30 percent.

As Mr. N’dolo pointed out, any one of the seven items above would be enough to call the completeness of the entire chapter into question. In combination, he says, they completely invalidate the findings. (We were watching Alexander Durst throughout the evening. He usually clasps his hands in front of him on the table, and this presentation made him literally white-knuckled. We think this presentation is a good example of how green the Durst organization is—green as in the color of money.)

Mr. N’dolo was followed by a number of other speakers. Jane Waters, a member of the steering committee of PPU and a master birdwatcher, spoke to some of the environmental findings in chapter 8. She noted that the chapter reported seeing 18 barred owls on the site, an unusually high number that indicates the presence of unfragmented woodland habitat—habitat that the development will break up into much smaller pieces. She also noted that including the golf course as part of the habitat available to ground-nesting birds such as bobolinks and meadowlarks is incorrect—these birds nest in unmowed grasslands, not on manicured golf courses. She also expressed some concern about the impact on local traffic from trucks hauling material from the existing gravel mine. (You can read her remarks here.) About ten other Pine Plains residents spoke, all but two in opposition to various aspects of the project. Matthias Kessemeier of Hicks Hill Road had an intriguing suggestion for the Dursts: Scale back the development significantly and turn most of the property into a nature preserve. Create a lasting environmental legacy called the Durst Land Conservancy. (We would rephrase that: Put your money where your mouth is.)

Joel Tyner, a Democratic member of the Dutchess County Legislature representing district 11, Rhinebeck and Clinton, spoke in opposition to the scale and negative environmental impact of the project. (Mr. Tyner has introduced a resolution to that effect in the DC Legislature—see it here. See here for the newspaper report and our comments, and see here for Ross Williams’ letter of support [insert Word doc of Ross letter]. To send a letter of support for the resolution, write to countylegislators@co.dutchess.ny.us. As Joel correctly points out, the impacts of this project will be felt throughout the county.)

Gary Cooper, the Republican member of the DC Legislature representing district 19, North East, Milan, and Pine Plains, has yet to speak out on this issue, even though it directly affects his entire constituency. He did attend the hearing, and may have been at others (we forgot to look for him). State Senator Leibell has also not been heard from as far as we know, but then that’s to be expected. He has taken substantial campaign contributions from Durst—see here for more. We also don’t think anything has been heard from State Assembly Member Mark Molinaro. (We could be wrong here—let us know if we are.) It’s disappointing to see our elected representatives hide behind supposed “objectivity” and local home rule as an excuse to avoid alienating a powerful and wealthy company like the Durst Organization. They should be paying more attention to their constituents.

Jack Grumet, chair of the Milan Zoning Board of Appeals, discussed the economic aspects of the project. He pointed out that like it or not, if this project goes through the towns of Milan and Pine Plains are going into partnership with Durst. If the assumptions in the DEIS are flawed, the towns will pay the price.

The hearing wrapped up early, at least relative to the earlier hearings in Pine Plains, at 8:45.