Three months after Ulster County officials criticized the latest plan to develop Winston Farm as “woefully short on design goals and standards to support these goals,” the project’s developers have not yet responded publicly to the county’s concerns.
The criticism came in a July 25 letter to the Saugerties Town Board from the Ulster County Planning Department, the contents of which weren’t made public at the time. The letter, which has been reviewed by The Overlook, says the project’s Draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement (DGEIS) lacked an open space analysis, standards for affordable housing, mixed-use development and mapping.
The site’s developers are “firmly in the, ‘figuring out what they are trying to do’ stage,” Ulster County Planner Robert Leibowitz said in an interview on Tuesday. “There are a couple of hoops they need to jump through before they finish up.”
Saugerties Town Supervisor Fred Costello said the town plans to publish the planning board’s letter as part of the comments on the draft process once it hears back from the developers. A spokesman for Winston Farm, who declined to speak on the record, said that all public and county comments will be addressed in the Final Generic Environmental Impact Statement.
The county’s letter marks the latest twist in the five-year saga over how to make the best use of the 840-acre parcel bordering state Routes 32 and 212 near Exit 20 on I-87. Saugerties businessmen Tony Montano, John Mullen, and Randy Richers bought it for $4 million in 2020. The site of Woodstock ‘94 had previously been listed for sale for as much as $7.5 million.
Questions of what should be built, where the development would be, which areas would be preserved and what design standards are in place “are all critical elements that should receive the same amount of attention as water, sewer, traffic, etc.,” the planning board wrote in its letter. “Unfortunately, the DGEIS has deferred answers to these questions to a later date,” relying on a pending Planned Development District and master plan, the board wrote.
Although the draft environmental impact study lacks a “defined” master development plan, it does have a “conceptual” one, Costello said. Adding affordable and workforce housing, as the developers aim to do, will require town zoning laws to change, and doing so would entail a State Environmental Quality Review.
“The current zoning is everything we don’t want to happen on that property,” Costello said.
The original proposal, submitted in 2021, was to rezone the farm as a planned redevelopment district that would include residential, commercial and light industrial uses. The plan called for a mix of single-family homes, townhouses, apartments, a hotel, campground, conference and performing arts center and even research laboratories.
Local residents and environmental groups have raised numerous concerns in the ensuing years, ranging from its impact on the land and aquifer to increased traffic. Earlier this month, the town board heard dueling studies on whether the project, estimated to cost between $274 million and $539 million, would imperil supplies of local water.
Beautiful Saugerties and Catskill Mountainkeeper are pushing for 73.5% of the site to be open space in perpetuity, basing their calculations on a 2009 feasibility study for the farm and aiming to preserve the site’s wetlands, woodlands, forests, grasslands, plants and animal habitats. The town’s comprehensive plan acknowledges a minimum of 50% to be preserved as open space.
Communal spaces should be considered open space, Costello said.
“A dog park, community pavilion with a park area, sleigh riding on Snyder’s Hill, in my mind, could be defined as open space,” he said.
In the meantime, human activity at the site is at a minimum, just as it’s been since 2020.
“It can’t go on forever,” Costello said.
Barbara Reina is a contributing reporter. Reach her at reporting@theoverlooknews.com.