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Planning Board mulls mining permit request from two years ago
By Bob green
GHENT — The Ghent Planning Board received a surprise recently when the Department of Environmental Conservation approved a proposed mining operation that seeks to remove up to 180,000 cubic yards of gravel from a property on Carpenter Road.
In issuing a negative declaration of environmental impact under the State Environmental Quality Review Act, the DEC put back in play an application that had not been discussed in nearly two years. Unless a deadline is extended, the Planning Board has 62 days to act on the application — the first of its kind since the town’s mining law was passed in 2005.
The applicant “seemed to go away. We didn’t get any response,” said town attorney Ted Guterman at the May Planning Board meeting. A letter from town engineer Ray Jurkowski in the spring of 2007 seeking further information was never answered by Vincent Molinari, a finance professional from Cold Spring Harbor. Molinari’s representative Nick Demos PE of Hudson River Valley Engineers in Mechanicsville appeared before the Planning Board six times between August 2006 and April 2007.
In the original application, Molinari and his wife said they wanted to build a home on the 160-acre property, and to construct a pond as well, which would require removal of 300,000 cubic yards of material. In order to defray construction costs, an estimated 100,000 cubic yards of gravel would be sold at less-than-market rates. Demos estimated at the time that the gravel could retail for “in the range of $2 million.”
In February 2007, Molinari himself appeared for the only time, at the closing of a public hearing which opened the previous October. Demos said that test borings yielded an updated estimate of 180,000 cubic yards of gravel, meaning proceeds of up to $3.6 million might be realized. When some residents questioned the assertion that the mining operation did not have a profit motive, Planning Board Co-Chair Jonathan Walters said it wasn’t relevant.
“Market potential is not a Planning Board issue,” he said, according to the minutes of the meeting.
The town’s mining law was approved in 2005. While the DEC has jurisdiction over mining sites and their operations, Ghent’s Local Law 2005.3 allows the town to regulate hours of operation, dust control and migration, and impacts on public roadways and the surrounding area. A redemption bond can be required of mine operators in case of non-compliance. These issues are addressed in the granting of a special use permit, as well in the site plan review.
Jurkowski reported at this month’s Planning Board meeting that the applicant had hired a new engineer, and that person left the town out of the loop — until now. Jurkowski said the latest engineering documents were received just prior to the meeting and couldn’t be evaluated in time. Guterman said the new engineer “appears to be diligently trying to address our issues, but we didn’t know any of this was going on. They issued a [negative declaration] without even telling us about it.”
Dated April 4, the DEC document (http://www. dec.ny.gov/enb/20090422_not4.html) restarted a 62-day clock which commenced once before at the close of the public hearing on Feb. 7, 2007. On April 4, 2007 Demos agreed that the clock would restart after receipt the final DEC SEQR by the Planning Board. Then in July of that year, Walters reported a phone call in which Demos said the application for a mining permit with the DEC “remains active.”
Guterman said at this month’s Planning Board meeting that town law allows for extension of the deadline in certain circumstances, and he recommended asking for the applicant’s cooperation. If forced to rule by June, the town could be forced to reject the application for incompleteness, he said.
The predicament was also described by Jurkowski in a letter to the DEC dated April 30, 2009. He pointed out that “the applicant voluntarily stopped appearing. ... The applicant’s failure to continue the special use permit and site plan process has placed a substantial burden on the planning board.”
Noting the deadline of around two months, the letter says “this will be difficult as the applicant has not addressed previous comments” from 2007. “It is unclear if the mining plan ... is the same proposal that had appeared before the Planning Board,” Jurkowski wrote.
If any changes in the plan turn out to be significant, some Planning Board members said it would be appropriate to reopen the public hearing, where concerns about traffic safety and quality of life were raised earlier.
“We’d be doing ourselves and the public a service,” said member Frank Mendelson.
“We all thought it was dead, too,” said a resident who asked to be heard after tapping his toe through two hours of other business, although he did not identify himself.
He added, “I think this is gonna happen,” and asked the Planning Board to negotiate firmly on details such as hours, berms, and the number of trucks per hour, all of which were discussed in detail during the hearings of 2006 and 2007.
In issuing a negative declaration of environmental impact under the State Environmental Quality Review Act, the DEC put back in play an application that had not been discussed in nearly two years. Unless a deadline is extended, the Planning Board has 62 days to act on the application — the first of its kind since the town’s mining law was passed in 2005.
The applicant “seemed to go away. We didn’t get any response,” said town attorney Ted Guterman at the May Planning Board meeting. A letter from town engineer Ray Jurkowski in the spring of 2007 seeking further information was never answered by Vincent Molinari, a finance professional from Cold Spring Harbor. Molinari’s representative Nick Demos PE of Hudson River Valley Engineers in Mechanicsville appeared before the Planning Board six times between August 2006 and April 2007.
In the original application, Molinari and his wife said they wanted to build a home on the 160-acre property, and to construct a pond as well, which would require removal of 300,000 cubic yards of material. In order to defray construction costs, an estimated 100,000 cubic yards of gravel would be sold at less-than-market rates. Demos estimated at the time that the gravel could retail for “in the range of $2 million.”
In February 2007, Molinari himself appeared for the only time, at the closing of a public hearing which opened the previous October. Demos said that test borings yielded an updated estimate of 180,000 cubic yards of gravel, meaning proceeds of up to $3.6 million might be realized. When some residents questioned the assertion that the mining operation did not have a profit motive, Planning Board Co-Chair Jonathan Walters said it wasn’t relevant.
“Market potential is not a Planning Board issue,” he said, according to the minutes of the meeting.
The town’s mining law was approved in 2005. While the DEC has jurisdiction over mining sites and their operations, Ghent’s Local Law 2005.3 allows the town to regulate hours of operation, dust control and migration, and impacts on public roadways and the surrounding area. A redemption bond can be required of mine operators in case of non-compliance. These issues are addressed in the granting of a special use permit, as well in the site plan review.
Jurkowski reported at this month’s Planning Board meeting that the applicant had hired a new engineer, and that person left the town out of the loop — until now. Jurkowski said the latest engineering documents were received just prior to the meeting and couldn’t be evaluated in time. Guterman said the new engineer “appears to be diligently trying to address our issues, but we didn’t know any of this was going on. They issued a [negative declaration] without even telling us about it.”
Dated April 4, the DEC document (http://www. dec.ny.gov/enb/20090422_not4.html) restarted a 62-day clock which commenced once before at the close of the public hearing on Feb. 7, 2007. On April 4, 2007 Demos agreed that the clock would restart after receipt the final DEC SEQR by the Planning Board. Then in July of that year, Walters reported a phone call in which Demos said the application for a mining permit with the DEC “remains active.”
Guterman said at this month’s Planning Board meeting that town law allows for extension of the deadline in certain circumstances, and he recommended asking for the applicant’s cooperation. If forced to rule by June, the town could be forced to reject the application for incompleteness, he said.
The predicament was also described by Jurkowski in a letter to the DEC dated April 30, 2009. He pointed out that “the applicant voluntarily stopped appearing. ... The applicant’s failure to continue the special use permit and site plan process has placed a substantial burden on the planning board.”
Noting the deadline of around two months, the letter says “this will be difficult as the applicant has not addressed previous comments” from 2007. “It is unclear if the mining plan ... is the same proposal that had appeared before the Planning Board,” Jurkowski wrote.
If any changes in the plan turn out to be significant, some Planning Board members said it would be appropriate to reopen the public hearing, where concerns about traffic safety and quality of life were raised earlier.
“We’d be doing ourselves and the public a service,” said member Frank Mendelson.
“We all thought it was dead, too,” said a resident who asked to be heard after tapping his toe through two hours of other business, although he did not identify himself.
He added, “I think this is gonna happen,” and asked the Planning Board to negotiate firmly on details such as hours, berms, and the number of trucks per hour, all of which were discussed in detail during the hearings of 2006 and 2007.
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