Landfill and Apollo visions

The rebirth of a blighted neighborhood?

By FRITZ MAYER

MONTICELLO, NY — The state is once again moving on plans to rearrange exit 106 from Route 17 and, before long, motorists departing from the highway there will find themselves in front of the crumbling Apollo Plaza, with the closed county landfill rising imposingly behind it.

Now that the county-owned land surrounding the landfill will no longer be used for an expansion, and now that the county has taken possession of the adjacent Apollo property due to nonpayment of taxes, county officials are thinking about putting the 350 acres to better use.

At a meeting at the government center on January 14, Luiz Aragon, the Sullivan County planning commissioner, gave a presentation that showed what other communities had done with their closed landfills. Some had become parks, while others had become retail outlets. Aragon explained his vision for the landfill in Monticello. “The concept,” he said, “is to have a recreational/retail experience that recognizes what we’re known for, which is the outdoors.”

For the retail part of the equation, Aragon would like to attract high-end sports outfitters like Cabela’s or Bass Pro Shops. As for the activities, he ticked off a long list of possibilities such as rock climbing, hiking, skiing, soccer, ATV riding, wildlife viewing and swimming.

There is some limitation as to what can be done in the cells that actually contain the decomposing solid waste because the membrane covering the garbage can’t be punctured, but that leaves plenty of room for development. He added that the county’s soon-to-be-expanded recycling center would be in the middle of the project, but, he said, “that’s not a problem; that’s an asset because we really want this to have an environmental angle that we hope to highlight.”

Aragon has been working on the project with all of the economic development organizations in the county and other departments, and the reception from county lawmakers was enthusiastic. Lawmaker Leni Binder said it would be a “win-win” for everybody, and that she couldn’t imagine that anyone would be opposed.

Because the land is located in the Village of Monticello and the Town of Thompson, both of those municipalities would have to sign on to the project. Gordon Jenkins, the mayor of Monticello, who attended the presentation, called the project “exciting.”

Aragon said that while the project is still in the early discussion phase, a workable way forward might be to form a taskforce now and by August of this year begin a worldwide competition for the design of facility, which might be completed in May 2011.

All of this would depend on the amount of funding that could be accessed by the county to pay for construction.

In the meantime, lawmaker Alan Sorenson, who was working on the project pro bono as a planner, said that the county should move forward investigating whether there are any environmental issues at the site, and that the county should move to demolish and remove the crumbling Apollo buildings in advance of the completion of the overall plan for the site.