Work on this new “preferred” alternative plan is being led by Alexander (Alex) Felson, an expert ecological planner on the faculty at Yale, and the multinational planning firm EDAW. This plan has widened buffer zones around important wetlands and vernal pools and has much more dedicated connected open space (see Open Space Map of the new plan). It clusters most of the development around the golf course, away from both the Ham Brook and the Route 199 view shed. The number of housing units has been reduced to 648 (576 in Pine Plains, 61 in Milan and 11 on lots that are partly in both towns). The 18 hole golf course is redesigned with the second nine extending towards 199 on the west side of the property. There will no longer be an additional 9 hole academy course.

While this process of redesign and updating the Planning Board on it continues; the Planning Board must still continue to work on their review of the comments about the original DEIS and reach decisions about what must be done to address them. While the redesign may be part of that process; additional studies may be required as needed, for example, in reviewing the fiscal impacts, school impacts or other environmental impacts. It is not clear at this time whether the board will require a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement based on the revised plan and/or detailed corrections required to address deficiencies in the data in the original DEIS. Alternatively the board could proceed directly to a Final Environmental Impact Statement which must include all the substantive comments and the responses to them by the developer that also might include the new plan as a part of the response.

The original proposal was for 951 new units (some houses are already on the property) on 2,200 acres (1,772 acres in Pine Plains and 428 acres in Milan). PPU has recently learned the Dursts had also planned 71 additional units on the “previously approved” 99 half acre lot subdivision west of Carvel Lake which was carved out of the original plan, making the actual total 1022 new units. The property is on both sides of 199 beginning just west of the hamlet area of town (including the first farm before you come to the wetlands) and it includes sections on Hicks Hill Rd., Stissing Mountain Rd. and Sherwood Rd. and small sections even cross the Taconic Parkway. It includes all of the original Carvel Golf Club. This first proposal included 563 houses and 388 attached units: 526 detached houses on 988 acres in Pine Plains and 37 houses on 142 acres in Milan; and 4 clusters of 358 attached units on 75 acres in Pine Plains and 30 units on 8 acres in Milan. The overall density of the project in Pine Plains was 2 acres per unit and 2.3 for the whole property.

In addition, the Durst Organization recently purchased a contiguous 98 acre farm on Mt. Ross Road, which brings the total acreage they own to nearly 2,300 acres. This recent purchase is not included in the proposal currently before the Pine Plains Planning Board.

Read the article here.

→ George Janes’ Photosimulation Critique of Durst DEIS”

George Janes of the Environmental Simulation Center has studied and critiqued the photosimulations provided in Durst Draft Environmental Impact Statement. The link to the entire document is below followed by Janes’ summary of conclusions.

“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.”

Peer Review of Chapter 14 “Community Services and Fiscal Impacts”

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS

There are a number of omissions and material errors in Chapter 14 that render it invalid. Camoin Associates finds that Chapter 14 does not meet the requirements of the Carvel DEIS Final Scoping Document because it does not accurately reflect the fiscal impacts of the proposed project. As such, Camoin Associates recommends that the Town of Pine Plains Planning Board, as Lead Agency for the Carvel DEIS:

(a) reject Chapter 14 in its current incomplete form,
(b) require that substantial revisions be made by 1133 Taconic, LLC/Landmark Land
Company, Inc. (“Project Sponsor”),
(c) ensure that such revisions are reviewed by an expert party and that the revisions
are made to the satisfaction of the Lead Agency, and
(d) provide the general public the opportunity to comment on the revised version of
Chapter 14.

Another issue that Jane Waters gave testimony about at the March 12th Carvel DEIS hearing was the Gravel Mine and its impacts on the Hamm Brook. She said that in doing the habitat studies they found spawning trout in the upper Ham Brook and Dan Stone (from Chazen) said because of that they have located much of the construction closer to the golf course in the next watershed. However, the gravel mine is just across Mt. Ross Road from where the Ham Brook is located. And she gathers not only are they going to mine the gravel at the mine, but will also truck in stone excavated elsewhere on the property and then break it down in the gravel mine area and then truck it back out to use on the property. Won’t that create a huge amount of gravel dust that could get into the stream? (See page 3 of the appendix 10.3: “Excavated rock would be loaded onto trucks at the excavation location and delivered to the on-site rock crusher area for processing. A stockpile of crushed rock would be created for future use. Economically it is favorable to co-locate the rock crushing and concrete fabrication processes so the cost to truck material across the site is minimized. Rock crushing and concrete fabrication operations would most likely be performed near the existing sand and gravel mine site where both fine and coarse aggregate are readily available and close to a major roadway for cement and additive deliveries.”).

Has the DEIS detailed adequately how they plan to prevent gravel dust contaminating the Hamm Brook trout spawning area? Especially because a seasonal stream that is directly contiguous to the gravel mine empties into the Hamm Brook.

She said she is also concerned about the heavily laden trucks that will be using that intersection coming from and going to other parts of the property, especially considering the new road that will go south from 199 to Stissing Mountain Road that will be almost across 199 from Mt. Ross and Windmill Hill Roads. Will there be enough sight distance coming east on 199 coming around that corner? Won’t that be a very dangerous area?

Released Mar 03, 2008

Jay Burgess
Director of Communications, Scenic Hudson, Inc.
Tel: (845) 473-4440 x222
Cell: (914) 489-0362
Fax: (845) 473-0740
jburgess@scenichudson.org

PINE PLAINS — An ecological assessment conducted by Scenic Hudson of the proposed Carvel Property Development in Pine Plains, Dutchess County, concludes the project would irreparably fragment an important wildlife habitat, contributing to the loss of rare species.

I. Related to school impacts:
1. While Carvel says in the Chapter 1 overview they are basing their tax rates on the 2005 year for County, town and fire district and on the 2004-2005 year for school taxes (including property taxes that have to be raised per student – see note at the bottom of Table 1.7 on page 1-64 for instance), in fact in their analyses they actually use an “average cost per capita” and “average cost per pupil” method of analysis that uses five year averages to compute taxes (see p. 14-55 and subsequent pages). The relevant page is 14-59. Look at Table 14.35, Property Taxes per pupil: 2000-2005-PPCSD. They average the five year taxes per pupil as $8,147; saying that makes sense to do in order to even out blips from year to year. However, in fact the taxes are going up each year, not fluctuating as the graph shown here demonstrates. The only fluctuation is a slight difference in the amount of increase year over year. I think they therefore underestimate the taxes per student in their analyses. The values they list per year are $7,006 (2000-2001); $7,464 (2001-2002); $8,008
(2002-2003); $8,616 (2003-2004); $9,640 (2004-2005). To see how this throws off the estimates if you look at their appendix 14-2, Table B.8 you’ll see that the way they figure the data they say the property tax per pupil needed by year 5 is $9,666, which is in fact only a few dollars off what was actually needed in year 2004-5.2. Other ways they have used data that might skew the results:

• I do not think they have not included the children generated by the 99 half acre lots that are “previously approved” which they plan to develop (there are about 9 houses currently there, but they can build 90 more). Also they have used the .55 as the multiplier for school children per primary home. That number is accurate according to census and other data for existing primary homes. However both the studies the school commissioned by Paul Seversky and the fiscal impact study “Impacts of Growth in Pine Plains” completed by Phillips Preiss Shapiro in May of 2006 used a multiplier of .71 because that is the number of school children per new home in the area. In fact, given the number of bedrooms in the planned houses it might be more appropriate to estimate numbers of children based on numbers of bedrooms. And note that James Sheldon in his remarks in the recent hearing uses a number of 1.35 child/new home based on the numbers per new home in the Arlington School District farther south in Dutchess County (see his remarks in “Durst Watch (3) “By the Numbers” posted on his website: www.littletownviews.com).

II. Municipal Costs (including fire district):

Looking at the analysis for Pine Plains the Carvel DEIS also uses a five year trailing average “to even out the blips.” When you look at table 14.31 on page 14-57 you see the expenditures for years 2001 through 2005 and here you do see blips, especially in 2002, which was higher than the other years by more than $200,000. However there are two small footnotes that say the 2004 total is the town budget (i.e. not actual expenditures) and the 2005 total is a “projected expenditure from the 2005 budget.” In fact the actual expenditures for those 2 years were substantially higher (more than $400,000 higher in 2004 and just under $400,000 higher in 2005). Thus the baseline
average municipal expenses they base their calculations on ($1,408,761) should have been substantially higher, with the actual 5 year average being $1,573,582. If they had used the actual 2005 figure it would be $1,849,127.

III. Related to highway costs:

1. In reviewing Chapter 14 (see pp-182-183) although Carvel/Durst acknowledge that 10.2 miles of roadway (a 26% increase) will need to be built and therefore plowed, swept and maintained; they say the resultant increase in the Pine Plains highway budget under the proposed action (i.e. mostly second home scenario) will only need to increase staff by 8.2 % or .37f.t.e. and the budget would only increase by $44,914. They give the baseline budget as $546,250. Thus the resulting budget would be $591,164.
However, under the mostly primary home scenario they say under their comparison of the highway budgets of other towns the size of the projected population of Pine Plains in year 10 the budget would be $1,146,379. They say the department would have to increase by 66%. Under just a percentage increase of the budget that falls between 26% and 66% would give a range of increase of $144,721 and $360,525 and added to the current budget of $546,250 would result in a projected budget of between $690,971 and $906,775. Either way you are talking about real money. But, don’t you have to plow, sweep and maintain whether most of the residents are part time or
full time? I realize the wear and tear might be less with a lot of part timers, but most of the expenses would be the same, wouldn’t they? So it seems to me that the higher estimates would have to replace the $591,164 number even in the part time scenario.”

2. Also even their estimates about highway costs in the impacts section of the DEIS do not agree with their estimate based on an interview with the Highway Superintendent discussed in the Mitigation section on page 14-203 where the give a budget figure for the Highway Department of $1,116,953 for the preferred scenario (see the third line on that page compared to what is said on page 14-182). It looks as if there might have been further discussion about additional equipment the Highway Department is saying they need. That might in fact be a more realistic estimate than they have in
their impacts section, but this discrepancy needs to be reconciled. I think there are similar discrepancies in their estimates for the full time scenario in the two sections (see also p.14-203 for the full time costs in the mitigation section and compare them to the costs discussed on page 14-182 and following pages).

IV. Additional comments related to police and fire:

1. In their analyses about both the police department and the fire departments in Pine Plains, similar to the way they analyzed the costs for the fire department, they give much lower figures for their “preferred scenario,” which I question. In fact, empty houses can burn and empty houses can be broken into. The local paper, the Pine Plains Register Herald just this week contains an editorial and both papers contain articles about recent rashes of burglary in the area. The editorial says that burglary is the most common crime in Dutchess County. While I’m not in favor of gated communities, at least in a gated community you have some idea who is coming into the area. This development will have easy access to a highway and enterprising thieves could rob a few of these high end unoccupied houses and be well on their way before any alarm is sounded. It seems that the police department will have to do much more frequent patrols of the area. The only way they can do that is increase staffing even in the part time scenario. Of course, if Durst really wanted to mitigate the impacts this would impose on the town, the development could commit to hiring their own security
force. The same kinds of issues apply to the fire department. Lightning strikes could start a fire on a street with unoccupied houses and the fire might be quite advanced before anyone called it in.

V. Mitigation:

I thought that mitigation in SEQRA related to things the developer can do to mitigate the impacts caused by his development, but over and over in the fiscal impact chapter the mitigation suggested is either the town can raise bonds to cover costs (which will result in an increase in taxes for all residents) or the allocation in the budget of moneys per each department can re reallocated; i.e. take some from one department and give it to another. I think that is unacceptable (rob Peter to pay Paul).

VI. Marketing Plan:

The Marketing Plan was developed in the height of a very strong real estate market which has since sunk to lows not seen for many years. Large farms are still selling to wealthy New Yorkers for high prices, but otherwise the market has largely dried up. My real estate friends say that only 20 houses in Pine Plains were sold in the last year. The initial market analysis looked at the history of sales in the area and at the potential population of “uber affluent” in the greater NY metro area who might be at the age and income level that they would be looking for a high end country home.
However it was deficient in that it did not take in to account the other similar developments currently on the drawing boards in near by towns (just look at Darryl Gangloff’s article on Carvel and the three other golf developments in the current issue of Dutchess Magazine). In addition to golf developments, there are other developments, such as Depot Hill (122 single family homes and 16 town houses) in Amenia that are planned around horse farms. If you look at the last page of the Marketing study there are three conditions under which their consultant says the predicted results will no longer be reliable: if the economy turns sour, if the housing
market has a downturn and if there are competitive developments aimed at the
same market in the area. Well, all three of these issues have now come to
pass.

EDITORIAL

A plan to develop 2,200 acres of rural land into 951 luxury homes has certainly earned the attention of the residents of Milan and Pine Plains.When 300 persons from towns totaling less than 5,000 residents attend a hearing, that’s a tip off that locals smell something that could change their communities. For perspective, a comparable turnout for a city of Kingston hearing would require 1,200 residents.The Durst Organization, better known for its work in New York City real estate, and Landmark Land Co. are shopping a plan for weekend and second homes on the former Carvel estate. It is before the Pine Plains Planning Board for environmental review.

A spokesman for the engineering firm working on the project said the Durst plan would build on the vision of former owner Tom Carvel, the ice cream magnate who died in 1990.

With apologies to the memory of Carvel and to his ice cream pal, Fudgie the Whale, that’s a dicey proposition, at best. Carvel indubitably knew a thing or two about retailing ice cream andfranchising. But he was, charitably, a bit eccentric and, to borrow a memorable line by humorist Dave Barry, we mean “a bit eccentric” in the same way that you might consider the surface of the sun “a bit warm.”

It’s entirely appropriate for residents to be concerned about a development of such substantial scale.Even if you lowball the occupancy projection to a scant two persons per house, the project would add a potential 2,000 residents, a 40 percent increase. Up it slightly to three residents per household and, suddenly, you’ve got nearly 3,000 more residents and an increase of 60 percent.

Add to that the spread of housing across rural lands and that the owners of the houses would be imports to the community with rather different backgrounds and values.Of course, there’s environmental impact and, then, there’s environmental impact. And the environmental impact that most everyone has their eye on in these matters are not the ones they end up arguing about, such as water runoff, septic disposal, erosion, traffic and the like. To some extent, all of those things can be engineered away.

What you can’t engineer away – never mind accurately project – are the socioeconomic and lifestyle impacts of spreading houses across 2,000 acres of open land and boosting a rural community’s population by 40 to 60 percent with outsiders.

That said, Pine Plains and much of the rest of the Mid-Hudson Valley are facing an inexorable march of people and money upon their little slice of heaven. With those new people can also come new prosperity and ideas.

Whether spreading 1,000 homes over 2,000 rural acres is the right way to do it is an open question and deserves full ventilation under the current environmental review.

Finally, communities have a right to guide their futures through prudent land-use plans and zoning. Pine Plains, the last community in Dutchess County without zoning, has been late to avail itself of those tools and has been taking an agonizingly long time to develop its first zoning ordinance.It’s now in the hands of the Town Board and past time to get that done.

“In this project’s current form, using the adjective “green” is nothing more than putting the proverbial ‘spats on a pig’. We are hopeful that the project sponsor, with its acknowledged urban record of implementing exemplary green strategies in their projects, will, in good conscience, redesign Carvel Property Development as a true model of sustainable development, a character-filled community within which residents will be inspired to live, and Pine Plains will be proud to welcome.“

Download the PDF: County Planning Review of Durst Development

Poughkeepsie Journal Article

By Shaw Israel Izikson
02/14/08

PINE PLAINS – Despite nasty weather, more than 70 residents attended Wednesday night’s public hearing on the Carvel Property Development’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) at Stissing Mountain High School.

A controversial development

Even before the meeting started, objections to the project arose. Members of the grassroots community group Pine Plains United handed out fliers stating there is “nothing green” about the development and that taxes would go up for residents.

“We’re passing this out in response to the many mailings made to residents by the Durst Corporation,” member Kathleen Augustine said. “I think some of the points [engineering firm Chazen Companies] is making are not true. I think 951-plus new homes has nothing to do with rural character.”

Laura Clark, member of community betterment group Teesink Crossroads 21, said she was disappointed with Pine Plains United.

“I am very disappointed that scare tactic-propaganda was allowed to be handed out in the doorway as you came into the meeting,” Clark said. “I think so far what I’ve seen of the project, I am semi in favor of it. I appreciate that Durst has chosen a town like Pine Plains and that we’re lucky to have them not ready to pillage and clear cut the town.”

Describing the plan

In his 90-minute presentation at the beginning of the meeting, Chazen Companies principal Daniel Stone outlined what the Durst Organization had in store for the project.

“The Durst Organization wants to create a premier golf community in an environmentally responsible fashion,” Stone said. “The hamlet of Pine Plains was an [agriculture] based community that thrived and prospered for years and years when agriculture was king. Agriculture isn’t king anymore and this project has a possibility of infusing and revitalizing the hamlet area.”

Stone said the development will be a second-home community on approximately 2,200 acres of land. He said that only 24 percent of the site will be used for development, including homes, lawns, roads and infrastructure. Meanwhile, he said 1,197 acres of the project will remain as protected open space.

Stone said that since the site is directly adjacent to the Taconic State Parkway, local traffic impact will be minimal.

“[The project] will not have any measurable impact on the roads,” Stone said. “The fiscal impact statements state that there will be $30 million in economic benefits to the hamlet area to both Milan and Pine Plains each year to support local businesses.”

When it comes to annual property taxes, Stone said Dutchess County would receive $1.9 million, the Pine Plains School district would receive $7.2 million, the town of Pine Plains would receive $2.4 million, the town of Milan would receive $100,000 and both town fire districts would collectively receive $365,000.

He said the development would primarily be marketed to residents from New York City.

Public comment

At around 9 p.m., about two hours after the public hearing began, the public finally had a chance to speak.

The first resident was Jane Waters, who criticized the DEIS for being too complicated to understand, and also criticized the financial impact statement.

“The devil is in the details,” Waters said. “They said in more than one place that they used data from 2005 as a baseline year for both expenditure analysis and revenue analysis, but when you look at what they did for both the municipal and school budget analysis, they took what is called a five-year trailing average. They say this smooths out the fluctuations and blips that occur from year to year. So in the case of the property tax per pupil analysis, they actually averaged the real property taxes from 2000-01 for the next five years, to 2004-05.”

She said that, in 2000-01, property taxes were $7,006 per pupil, but in 2004-05 it was $9,640.

“Their baseline is $1,500 less than what it should be,” Waters said. “They underestimated the school costs for not only students they will add to the school, but this applies to every child in the school population.”

Former Planning Board member Peter Caldwell said that, in Stone’s presentation, there was no mention of the proposed zoning law.

“This is a defect in their proposal because the proposed zoning law will have a major impact on the project as they project it,” Caldwell said. “The proposed law will reduce the number of their new residences by more than half. Second, there is a requirement that they must cluster more than 75 percent of their new residences.”

Caldwell said that the project included lawn areas in front of homes as part of their calculation for open space.

“This is not acceptable as a definition of open space,” Caldwell said. “The zoning law requires that 10 percent of new residences be made as moderately affordable housing. There is no mention in their proposal for doing this.”

Becky Thornton, president of the Dutchess Land Conservancy, took the developers to task over the issue of open space.

“[In the DEIS it states] the proposed action would result in approximately 1,900 acres of the project’s 2,200-acre site would remain as [open space],” Thornton said. “However, [according to the developers], everything outside of the front door, including the footprint of a building, is considered as open space.”

Real estate broker Susan Crossley said the proposed development is really suburban sprawl.

“As I read through their chapter on visual impact, I noted that along Route 199, there will be 108 new buildings visible,” Crossly said. “I want you know what every New Yorker is looking for in a second home: a charming old house quietly set at the end of a dead-end country road. One hundred and eight houses on lots on Route 199 will not sell to New York second-home buyers.”

Voice your opinion

Many residents asked for an extension for the public comment period on the DEIS.

At the end of the meeting, Planning Board Chairman Don Bartles said the board will consider extending the comment period.

The next public hearing on the DEIS is scheduled for Friday, Feb. 29, at 7 p.m. at Stissing Mountain High School. There will be additional hearings Thursday, March 6, at 5 p.m. at Milan Town Hall and Wednesday, March 12, at 7 p.m. at Stissing Mountain High School.

The DEIS is available for public viewing at Pine Plains Town Hall, Milan Town Hall, The Pine Plains Free Library and the Carvel Country Club Clubhouse. It will also be available online at carvelpropertydevelopment.com.