Sounding off on Albany project
Water, sewer fears linger despite DEC determinations
Construction materials, above, fill a fenced-in area in an Albany neighborhood where the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision is developing a training academy. At left, neighborhood residents and Albany County officials express their concerns Tuesday about the work in light of water, sewer and drainage issues in the area as well as how residents were never notified of the expansion. Suzanne Waltz, a member of the Normanside Neighborhood Association, is among those taking part in a press conference.
The state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision determined a $40 million expansion of the Albany Training Academy wouldn’t have any adverse significant environmental impact and that an environmental review wouldn’t be needed, according to the Department of Environmental Conservation.
The Feb. 27 posting on the DEC website came several weeks after work had already begun at the site on New Scotland Road in Albany’s Normans Kill neighborhood.
Neighbors have raised concerns about drainage, flooding and the loss of green space as DOCCS constructs dormitories that would have more than 300 beds.
Local elected officials on Tuesday morning called on DOCCS to immediately halt construction while it solicits input from the surrounding community, where many residents have already spoken out against the project.
“Just because DOCCS has that right (to build on its property) doesn’t make it right,” said Andrew Joyce, chair of the Albany County Legislature.
State environmental regulations permit agencies to undertake their own environmental reviews, acting as “lead agency,” before they begin a project. And while state regulations require an environmental impact statement to be readily accessible on line to the public, an environmental assessment form required to make the negative declaration appears not to have the same public accessibility requirement.
A DEC spokeswoman referred a reporter who requested a copy of the environment assessment form to DOCCS, which didn’t immediately return a call for comment.
The project came as a surprise to many elected officials, even though it has been in the planning stages for years. Funding was approved in 2013, but it was only when fences went up at the beginning of February that neighbors became aware of the project.
“I had no clue this was going on until the fence went up,” said County Executive Dan Mccoy at a press conference next to the construction site on Tuesday morning. “That’s not being a good neighbor.”
Mccoy said the neighborhood has had water and sewer issues. “Is this going to add to our problems?” he asked. “I guess the (DOCCS) commissioner doesn’t have to answer to anybody.”
Mccoy wondered why the former Blue Cross/blue Shield office complex a short distance south hadn’t been considered for the expansion, and called on the state, which is facing a $2.9 billion budget shortfall, to “right-size” the project.
Some elected officials did meet with DOCCS officials two weeks ago, but representatives from the Normans Kill Neighborhood Association were disinvited at the last minute, according to resident Suzanne Waltz.
But a legislature spokeswoman said the meeting was always intended to be limited to elected officials.
DOCCS representatives are scheduled to meet with neighbors at a public meeting from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Wednesday at Martel’s Restaurant at Capital Hills Golf Course, 64 O’neill Road, in Albany.
DOCCS until now has by all accounts been a good neighbor, making its athletic fields and swimming pool available to the public. And one official sought to reassure neighbors that landscaping would be restored.
A DOCCS official, Assistant Commissioner Stephen Crozzoli, said in a letter to a local resident that “significant tree plantings and landscaping with the goal of maintaining residential privacy,” are part of the project. He said mature trees approaching 20 feet in height will be planted, both to maintain a privacy barrier and to “enhance the aesthetics” of the project.
And he said the goal was to “eliminate any negative impact to surrounding properties as a result of this much-needed project” to expand the academy.