New Hartford Planning Board Passed What?

Development plan passed in New Hartford reads the headline . . .But what is posted on the Town of New Hartford website as the "Final GEIS for Southern Portion of N.H." is not a Final Generic Environmental Impact Statement at all. Rather, it should be called a  "Responsiveness Summary" of the responses to public comments on a Draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement that was published last summer.  We all cannot attend all meetings to be sure what the Town is doing.  It is hard to fathom what NH is doing when it cannot get its basic terminology right. No wonder the Business Park is so screwed up.

That said, there are two things in the OD article that jump out at me.

(1) There seems to be an attitude (a sense of entitlement?) among some town land owners that they should be able to do whatever they want to do with their property.  Farmers complain that they no longer can farm (for whatever reason) and now the only way they can make ends meet is to sell their property to developers. . . . which the town now will restrict somewhat.  While no one likes being restricted, why should the NEIGHBORS of these landowners have to suffer the impacts of development -- particularly storm water runoff -- that occur off the property being developed?  That is a nuisance and interferes with THEIR ownership rights.  Here, with the 5 acre restriction everyone seems to complain about, the Town is only trying to protect its existing residents from the harms associated with development.

(2) Somehow this paves the way for more Fees In Lieu of Mitigation.  However there is nothing in either the "FGEIS" or the DGEIS that gives a formula or methodology for calculating what an appropriate fee is.

More work needs to be done.