Local residents organize against development

By TOM KANE

LAKE HUNTINGTON, NY — A large group of people stood outside the Town of Cochecton town hall on September 28, waiting for the doors to open. The person with the key didn’t show up until 7:30 p.m. when the meeting was to begin.

When the doors opened, people pushed through the door to get a seat. The crowd spilled out of the room into the hall.

What was it that brought so many people out in this quiet, little town?

A working session of a proposed subdivision of 40 homes on 108 acres on New Turnpike Road, a dusty, narrow road that is only partially paved, was to be held. The purpose of the session was to give Monticello attorney Martin Miller, representing the developer, an opportunity to hold a scoping session that the town planning board had requested.

A scoping session is an action by which a developer sketches out in general terms the design of the land that he has in mind in order to determine what the environmental issues will be.

The property lies at the intersection of New Turnpike and Cross Road.

The developer, Paul Savad of Rockland County, was not present. The property is owed by Grace Segrell, a local resident.

“This is not strictly a public hearing,” said planning board chairperson Sharron Cardone. “But because there are so many residents present, we will allow some remarks at the end.”

Resident after resident rose and spoke against the development in an organized way that indicated that the responses were previously planned.

The group’s attorney, John Parler, pointed out that the board had not declared who was to be the lead agency in the proceedings, something they should have done.

“Our attorney, Ira Cohen, is not present, so we don’t know if he filed the papers declaring the planning board the lead agency,” Cardone said.

One resident, Mitchel Heaney, discovered an error on the map of the proposed subdivision, which indicated that the property lines were not accurately drawn.

“This changes everything as far as I am concerned because the property is not 108 acres, which throws out the scope of the project,” Heaney said. No one on the board or Miller responded to his revelation.

The outcome is that the scoping process has to be redone at a future meeting after the board declares itself the lead agency.

“We will wait for a request from the developer, asking for another session next month or sometime in the future,” Cardone said.

“We are asking that the board move very slowly in considering this project, which will drastically change our community,” said Reid Badger, owner of the property which would be surrounded by the development.