A letter from the state Department of Environmental Conservation, arriving four months after town officials and developers thought all necessary approvals were attained, has potentially crimped efforts to begin work on a 52-unit affordable housing project slated to break ground in the spring.
However, attorneys working for the developer, the Rural Ulster Preservation Co., (RUPCO) said the DEC letter is erroneous both in its legal positions and the information it posits as supporting its conclusions. They are requesting prompt face-to-face meetings to resolve the dilemma.
After seven years of planning and five years of formal environmental and permit review, the $14.1 million 53-unit Woodstock Commons affordable housing project this summer officially cleared the environmental review process with acceptance of the final environmental impact statement in April, followed by announcements from state officials finalizing financing in July and attaining town site plan approval in August. Construction is scheduled for the spring.
The complex will be built by clustering the 52 units on seven acres of the 28-acre site.
But in a one page Dec. 2-dated letter, DEC environmental analyst Rebecca Crist overturned the position officially taken by the DEC in March 2009. Back then, the DEC said because a portion of the Woodstock Commons 28 acres is within the town”™s water and sewer district, no permit modification would be needed to enable the town to supply drinking water to the project.
Crist wrote in December that “during our review of the final EIS document, staff discovered” that only a portion of the acreage is within the town”™s water district and that portion is not the acreage where the project is being built. The town, Crist said, must apply to modify its water supply permit, a process that could take up to six months. Crist concluded that regulations have changed since that permit was issued, so the town must also abide by the new regulations and prove that the town supply is adequate to meet its obligations, even in the event that the primary supply well goes out of service.
Crist”™s letter made no explanation of why her determination on a final EIS document came eight months after the comment period for the FEIS document closed in April. However, DEC staff have been cut back in recent years and observers have predicted the cuts would begin to show up in ways that harm development proposals.
DEC region 3 spokeswoman Wendy Rosenbach said that staff did not notice that only half the Woodstock Commons parcel was not in the water district, until recently, more than seven months after the final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) was reviewed and officially accepted. “That”™s just the way the whole process worked out,” Rosenbach said. “Everything was done properly.”
Asked if staff cuts make it impossible for DEC staffers to review projects in a timely manner, she said, “I wouldn”™t say it makes it impossible. It certainly can make it more difficult.”
In a Dec. 8 letter, RUPCO”™s attorney Michael A. Moriello writes to Crist, “You are incorrect in your assessment as a matter of law.” Moriello cites “the plain meaning” of the Woodstock town law as explicitly granting water supply rights to any property within even a portion of the town water district and noted the property owners have paid water-use taxes for years. And he said the five-year review process, including DEC participation, ended with approval of the FEIS back on April 5. He concludes that the town had already shown the DEC in July 2000 that is has adequate redundant supply to abide by the new regulations. He called for a meeting between the parties as soon as possible.
Woodstock Town Supervisor Jeff Moran said the town “had no idea,” that the DEC was still reviewing the Woodstock Commons project so long after town officials believed it had been fully approved.
“It came as a complete surprise,” said Moran, and said DEC officials have not explained the timing of Crist”™s letter.
He said the town has contacted DEC for more information but meanwhile, Moran said, “I take it very seriously as an official position of the state.”
