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Village Of West Haverstraw Land Use Boards, Along With Town Engineer, Explain Environmental Review Of 454,000 Square Foot Grassy Point Warehouse Project
By Tina Traster
About 100 people attended a meeting in the Village of Haverstraw Tuesday that many countywide would have found useful: a 101 on how SEQRA (State Environmental Quality Review Act) works. A proposal to build a 454,000 square-foot warehouse on a former construction landfill was the focus on this presentation, but residents at large are often confounded or uneducated as to how development projects are evaluated by village and town land use boards.
In a two-hour session that was moved to the Village’s gymnasium to accommodate a crowd that has been expressing opposition to the warehouse, Village Engineer Mike Tamblin of Tamblin Engineering, walked the audience through the steps of the SEQRA process, particularly concentrating on what happens when a project is given a “positive” declaration. The meeting was called by the Planning and Zoning boards, which in the Village, meet at the same time.
“SEQRA establishes an environmental review process,” Tamblin’s slide said. “SEQRA requires the lead agency to take a hard look, identifying areas of environmental concern including traffic, noise, flooding, human health.”
Audience members peppered Tamblin with questions, but for the most part the two-hour meeting stayed calm and informative.
Tamblin kicked off by saying he was going to cover “What we’ve done, where are today, and what’s left.”
The Village of West Haverstraw Planning Board, the lead agency on the warehouse application, voted unanimously on April 9th to accept a Final Draft Scoping Document for a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) from the developers of 34.1 acres of vacant land bordered by East Railroad Avenue, Beach Road, and Ecology Road, near Minisceongo Creek.
Grassy Point Bend LLC and developer Industrial 2020 LLC are planning to construct a 454,000 square foot wholesale storage and warehousing facility on the former Construction and Demolition Debris (C&DD) landfill. After the Planning Board determined the Project could give rise to at least one significant adverse environmental impact, a positive SEQRA declaration was issued on January 8.
The proposed Grassy Point Bend warehouse project borders a residential neighborhood to the west, Minisceongo Creek to the east, and Rockland Green’s planned conversion of an empty warehouse into a new animal shelter to the north. The 454,000 square foot project, with 76 truck bays will operate 24/7 though no tenant has yet been secured, according to the developer. The primary driveway for trucks entering the facility will be on Ecology Road, directly across from the planned animal shelter. The other will be on Grassy Point Road.
The 34-acre site is an uncapped construction and demolition debris landfill that was never properly closed. The grassy hill is covered with two feet of topsoil and overgrown vegetation. The project sits in the Village’s PLI (Planned Light Industrial) zone which allows for warehouse uses as-of-right, but the developer is requesting two variances – for building height and reduced parking.
The positive declaration triggered the requirement for the developers to prepare a Draft Scoping Document outlining the issues an Environmental Impact Statement would consider, address for significance, and proposed mitigating steps, as needed.
At least a couple of residents pointed out that issues raised during the public hearing for the Scoping Document were not included. For example, at least one audience member raised the potential impacts the warehouse would have on the proposed Rockland Green Animal Shelter on Ecology Road, which will serve as a shared road for the shelter and the warehouse traffic. The speaker in March raised the issue of the disturbance to the animals from the 24/7 trucking operation, the location of the designated truck access on Ecology Road (directly across from the shelter), the harm to animals from the truck back-up beeping alarms, and the lack of soundproofing on the northern side of the warehouse project (the side facing the animal shelter).
An audience member on Tuesday asked Tamblin about the application’s traffic study, pointing out that the study had not included the traffic the proposed animal shelter will bring. Another resident mentioned that the traffic study had been conducted when schools were not in session and did not include school bus traffic.
Tamblin explained that in addition to review from the Village’s land-use boards, the Scoping Document for the DEIS includes input from “interested parties” and “involved agencies” including the County, neighboring towns, and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC).
The County Planning Department, in its initial review in 2022, raised multiple issues related to the project and recommended reviews by the County Department of Highways, the Department of Health, the County Drainage Agency and the Division of Environmental Resources.
The Town of Stony Point provided its concerns in a detailed letter in March, describing issues related to the impacts of heavy truck traffic on various intersections and how the truck traffic might affect Penny Bridge. Supervisor Monaghan raised issues as to how employee traffic from the site would affect traffic at various intersections in Stony Point. He also requested that multiple intersections be included in the traffic studies, and demonstrated concerns regarding how the 24 hour operation, seven days a week, would impact nearby residential areas.
Edwards also said no comments were received from the Town of Haverstraw.
The Rockland County GML review specifically recommended Rockland Green complete a review of the project and share concerns. The Village of West Haverstraw was required by the County to provide both Rockland Green and the Town of Haverstraw an opportunity to weigh in on the project.
When asked if Rockland Green had submitted any comments related to scoping, Village of West Haverstraw Attorney Edwards said no comments were received from Rockland Green. No comments were received despite the potential adverse impacts on the animals at the shelter, the shelter’s employees, and Rockland County residents utilizing the shelter’s services.
Other concerns raised at the meeting this week related to the site’s provenance. It was unclear if the site was ever a Superfund site (the Village Engineer did not seem to know), and what it was used for before 1980. Post-1980, it was used as a Construction and Demolition Debris landfill, and applications to the Village and DEC focus potential re-use of the site on remediation of the construction debris. Residents have a longer memory and say that the site was used as a dump long before 1980, and that its history must be studied in greater detail.
Residents also raised concerns about the maintenance of the overgrown site, and whether it is better to leave the site undisturbed and overgrown, or risk exposing the contaminated subsoils by cleaning up the growth and fallen trees.
The next steps will be the review of the DEIS and, if accepted by the Village Planning Board, a public hearing on its formal adoption. Village Attorney Edwards promised residents full transparency on the DEIS, inclusion of all documents on the Village website, and an opportunity for the public to be heard on their environmental concerns, mitigation efforts, and the various studies produced as part of the environmental review.
