Longtime residents uneasy with housing plans
HALFMOON, N.Y. » Continued residential development in the northern part of town has neighbors concerned with their quality of life.
The Planning Board has held public hearings on two large residential proposals for Farm to Market Road in the past eight weeks. Neighbors of the housing sites at both hearings expressed concerns with traffic on the busy east-west road that only seems to increase.
The 91-lot Mott Orchard residential planned development district, 165 Farm to Market Road, was the latest proposal to draw the ire of residents living nearby. The board held a public informa- tion meeting on the project Aug. 14.
The project would offer three types of homes on a 97-acre parcel that is bisected by the road. Site plans call for the developer building approximately 30 detached single family homes on large lots, 30 smaller homes on smaller lots and 30 single family, attached homes
Public benefits as part of the PDD proposal would be $2,000 per lot or $182,000 to the town “for any (road) improvements the
town wants to make”.
The board heard nearly a dozen comments from the public at the hearing with multiple questions coming from several families who live nearby.
Dan Hoyt and others members of the Hoyt family had numerous questions for the project engineer as to drainage, a planned demolition of a barn, and increased traffic on the road. He added that he, personally, has received no benefit from other projects that have gone up in recent years.
“The town doesn’t need any more population growth,” Hoyt said. “It’s a shame to see all these old farms sold off for all these homes. The roads can’t take it. The number of accidents on Farm to Market is increasing each year. We don’t need any more traffic now.”
The statement drew a round of applause from the residents in the room.
Others spoke of numerous deer-related accidents on the road, a fact they believe is happening because development is taking what were once farm fields where wildlife roamed freely. The angst over a changing community was palpable.
Jacalyn Hoyt asked the board if any consideration was being given to longtime residents when developments, that would directly impact their lives, were being proposed.
“Ninety- one homes packed into a little piece of land is not technologically or morally correct,” she said getting more applause.
Another member of the Hoyt family asked the board what was to happen to his grandfather’s property. He questioned whether the family and the other neighbors’ quality of life was purposely being upended so they would sell out.
At a previous meeting on the Mott Orchard project on July 10, Planning Board member Rich Berkowitz took time to make the applicant aware of neighbors’ concerns with another Farm to Market Road project.
“We had another public informational hearing on a different project two weeks ago and the main concern was traffic going down from Farm to Market to Route 9,” he said. “We actually gave a negative recommendation back to the Town Board on that project specifically because of that problem. Now, this is another project on that same road with 40 percent of the traffic going in that same intersection. I’m sorry, you are just adding to that problem at (Route) 9 and Farm to Market Road. I just want to let you know that. Most of opinions of the public, most of the comments, are going to be on that intersection and on that traffic and you need to do something to find a way to improve that intersection along with all the other projects that are ongoing on that road.”
Though the board took no action on the Mott Orchard project, it did take action at the June 26 public hearing Berkowitz referenced, the proposed 66-lot Pinebrook Hills residential project, also on Farm to Market Road. After hearing residents’ comments at that hearing, the board sent a negative recommendation back to the Town Board.
Numerous neighbors of the project expressed deep concern with the traffic problems that are expected at the intersection of the Route 9 and Farm to Market Road traffic signal.
Planning Board member Tom Werner acknowledged the attractive vehicular draw that is Farm to Market Road at the June 26 public hearing.
“We know that corridor is going to continue to see more developments, more traffic, and there’s an absence of good east west routes in the town of Halfmoon, so it’s going to continue to grow,” he said.