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Residents Continue To Object To Senior Housing Development On Former Camp Champion Site Citing Dangerous Traffic and Offense To Neighborhood Character
On a short stretch of West Clarkstown Road, there were 90 traffic accidents reported to the New York State Department of Transportation during a two-and-a-half year span, according to data gathered by Clarkstown resident and CUPON Clarkstown member Laura Bidon.
“It’s not good,” said Bidon, pointing to a chart on a screen projected in the room where the Planning Board was holding its meeting last week. The chart showed where accidents had been tracked by the NYS DOT between 1/23/21 and 8/31/23. At least 37 of reported accidents took place around the intersection of West Clarkstown Road and Addison Boyce Drive.
It appears the revelation may be enough for the Clarkstown Planning Board to put the breaks on a proposed senior housing project on West Clarkstown Road, and take more time to study traffic and road conditions. West Clarkstown Road is a target of several recently-completed and pending developments.
While the total number of crashes on a ribbon of road is important, the severity of injuries and fatalities is particularly concerning. Residents testifying said there have been at least two fatalities along the stretch.
The Planning Board has asked the applicant and AKRF, the town’s traffic consultant, to secure additional data from NYS DOT, and advise the Board more specifically on types of crashes, locations, and numbers of fatalities
“It’s a very busy, hazardous road,” said Clarkstown’s Planning Board’s Vice Chairman Edward Guardaro. The accident data, he said, “underlines his concerns.”
At issue last week was an application to demolish existing structures at the former Camp Champion and construct a 121-unit senior housing complex with 217 parking spaces on the 9.18-acre property.
By all accounts, the property is blighted and fallow and needs a new plan. But several nearby residents spoke against the project, saying it will increase traffic, compromise the already burdened County Road (West Clarkstown Road), and will interfere with quality of life, including the developer’s plan to site a dog park close to neighbors’ homes.
“This is just too big,” said West Burda neighbor Roberto Johnson. “There’s a tonnage of concrete. I don’t see green. And West Clarkstown Road cannot accommodate the traffic — it’s too much of a burden.”
Johnson requested the developers sit down and meet with residents to talk about their plans.
Johnson’s neighbor Anthony Kennedy told the board “I literally learned about this 30 minutes ago. This is literally in my backyard. They might as well put a Costco there.”
Kennedy said he’s worried about light pollution, garbage trucks, noise.
“This is unnecessary,” he said. “It’s not the right place to put it.”
Other projects on West Clarkstown Road will also have an impact on traffic, traffic accidents, and possibly pedestrian injuries. Those projects include the recently completed renovation of L’Dor Assisted Living Facility at 156 West Clarkstown Road, a proposal to construct a religious school at 31-41 West Clarkstown Road, construction of Emerald Estates II off Emerald Court, and the construction of a church at the former Girl Scouts headquarters on West Clarkstown Road and Red Hill Road.
In 2022, One75 LLC, an LLC managed by local developer Gavriel (Gabe) Alexander, purchased the former site of Camp Merockdim for $3.35 million. The site at 175 West Clarkstown Road in New City, was last known as Camp Merockdim, an Orthodox Jewish day camp. Before that it was home to Camp Champion.
The parcel, located close to the Ramapo border, is zoned R-22, or single-family houses on half acre parcels, but the developer has been advancing an alternative plan to secure a Special Permit and construct a 146,880 square-foot senior housing complex with 96 one-bedroom and 25 two-bedroom apartments with 217 parking spaces. The original plan for a three-story, 265,654 square-foot building for 144 senior housing units was scaled back when changes to the Clarkstown code altered the parking requirements and reduced the number of permissible units.
Senior housing is allowed by special permit in the Town’s R-22 districts on state and county roads. The site is approximately 320 ft. south of the intersection of West Burda Lane and West Clarkstown Road in New City.
“It’s a great project,” Guardaro said, adding “worthy of the town. But we have to balance concerns about traffic and quality of life.”
In a critical assessment last year by the Rockland County Highway Department (West Clarkstown Road is a county road), County Engineer Dyan Rajasingham called West Clarkstown Road a “minor arterial roadway” with each lane being 10 feet wide, and described it as “a narrow two-lane roadway without shoulders that passes mainly through residential neighborhoods.”
“The annual average daily traffic on West Clarkstown Road is over 6,276 and gradually increasing every year,” he wrote. “During peak hours, vehicular and pedestrian traffic is often heavy and congested on West Clarkstown Road including at intersections.”
Rajasingham concluded that “the proposed senior housing facility would further impact the traffic conditions in the area” and suggested that the road needs to be improved, with consideration given to “adding a left turn lane on West Clarkstown Road at the driveway to promote traffic safety and keep up the same level of service.”
The developer agreed. It plans to use several feet of frontage from its property to widen the road and construct a left-turn lane, hoping the plan would mitigate some of the traffic issues that is holding up a determination by the Clarkstown Planning Board on the environmental impacts of the project.
New York’s State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) requires the Planning Board to review the project’s impact on traffic and its impact on the character of the neighborhood and direct the developer on mitigation of the impacts.
The 146,880 square foot apartment complex sits in a neighborhood surrounded by single-family homes with no retail services nearby. Residents would have to drive to shop, work, or recreate outside the complex, adding to the already heavily trafficked road.
