Yorktown Failed to Consider Key Aspects of Underhill Farms Application
Opinion Advocates for ideas and draws conclusions based on the author/producer’s interpretation of facts and data.
Let’s set the record straight about Underhill Farms.
At the Apr. 30 Yorktown Town Board meeting, town planning staff blamed the Army Corps of Engineers for not participating in the Planning Board’s lengthy SEQRA environmental review process for the project. To paraphrase the planning staff, as an interested party, it was the Corps’ duty to provide the Planning Board with comments, but they didn’t.
There’s only one problem with that statement; the Planning Board never notified the Corps about the wetlands application. So how could it know to respond?
Even when the Planning Board learned that the project needed an Army Corps of Engineers permit because a wetland on the property fell within its jurisdiction, planning staff never contacted the Corps; planning staff left the communication all up to the developer – who didn’t file an application for the permit with the Army Corps of Engineers until January, six months after the Planning Board approved the project. The Planning Board didn’t even include the need for the permit as a condition of granting site plan approval for Underhill Farms.
The need for an Army Corps permit only became public knowledge when raised by a local resident at the Jan. 30 public hearing to designate Underhill Farms as a Yorktown landmark.
Further, planning staff misrepresented the SEQRA record regarding the archeological testing that had been done on the site to determine if a French army camp was on or in the proximity of the site during the Revolutionary War.
Planning staff said that no additional monitoring was needed because the initial monitoring was done on the entire site. Not true. The SEQRA record clearly states that the western part of the 13.8-acre site was never properly tested for archeological artifacts as the ground in that part of the site was wet when the consultant performed shovel tests.
Staff also said the Planning Board considered all available documents and evidence needed to confirm whether or not there was a French encampment on the site. Again, not true. The Planning Board refused to consider the historic maps and analysis it was given that directly contradicted the developer’s incorrect statements about the encampments.
Facts are facts. Setting the Underhill Farms record straight.
Martin Costello
Yorktown
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