At the Town Planning Board meeting on December 2 - the board was asked to provide guidance on next steps to a proposed subdivision of 12 single family homes + 66 multifamily homes (11 buildings with 6 units in each building) on 89.95 acres Cedar Hill Road and Old Hopewell Road. A Homeowner's association is proposed, managing the roads and infrastructure (drainage, sewer and water connections). This project was proposed before the moratorium on large developments was enacted by the Town Board earlier this year, so their application is being considered. Apparently the code for this kind of development dates back to 1972, so there are a lot of questions about the process, given updates to laws in the ensuing years. There was a discussion about the lack of explicit criteria in the code to evaluate the application. It was basically agreed upon that it would be recommended that the Town Board be the lead agency on this -- which would require them to have a deep understanding of SEQR rules etc (Hopefully they will learn the difference between a Pos Dec and a Neg Dec before any decisions).
However... this level of density on this amount of acres, presumes municipal water and sewer connections. The engineer has had one meeting with Tri-Muni -- but right now Tri-Muni is working on an application process for when their facilities are able to accept new tenants... but right now is turning down all applications because the current facilities need major upgrades.
The point was made that if this development - is to provide their own water and sewer facilities -- the density would have to be reduced significantly.
The engineer for the project made the statement that the property, currently in municipal water and sewer districts, has been paying taxes for those districts for many years and she made the assertion that any property in the district has an automatic right to connection to infrastructure services. (This needs to be verified, because if one thinks about this for just a bit -- this would mean the facilities were built for infinite capacity -- which we know is not the case).
The Board basically came to the agreement that the project, before more town and developer resources were expended, should be tabled until more explicit recommendations from Tri-Muni were available.
Next up was a request for an extension on the sub-division for 39-41 Middlebush Road - existing single family home and two apartments (new). The original plan was to connect to Tri-Muni, but the developer's request was turned down, so the developer has updated the site plan to include septic. The application is waiting approval from the county board of health. Two 90 days extensions were granted, (and it was mentioned that because the request is to accomodate the board of health schedule, the planning board was ok with that, but are looking ever more skeptically on requests for extensions by developers)
The Village of Wappingers has a project at 787 Sgt. Palmateer Way before its Planning board, however part of the property's parking lot is in the Town of Wappinger. The Town Planning Board agreed to send a letter to the village, saying the Town has no interest in reviewing the project and will defer to the Village's decision.
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