Yorktown Strikes $2.1M Deal with Pipeline Co. for Land Use
The Town of Yorktown will receive $1.5 million plus approximately $600,000 in public improvements as part of an agreement it reached with the construction company readying to expand a gas transmission pipeline in the area.
In a 3-2 vote last week, the Yorktown Town Board authorized Spectra Energy and Algonquin Gas Transmission, LLC to access and utilize 7.5 acres of temporary workspace in Sylvan Glen Park Preserve and Granite Knolls Park West on Stony Street for 11 months and post-construction monitoring for five years.
“I think we made a very good deal for the Town of Yorktown,” Supervisor Michael Grace said. “We had a back and forth with Spectra for a long period of time.”
Spectra Energy representatives told Yorktown officials last month it plans on starting to clear land on its right-of-way in Yorktown in October for the controversial pipeline project, which would run from Stony Point, under the Hudson River, through Peekskill, Cortlandt, portions of Yorktown and into Southeast, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
The major construction work to remove an existing 26-inch gas pipeline that has existed since 1954 without incident and replace it with a 42-inch one would take place in the summer of 2016 and last for two to three months. The gas pressure would also increase by 25%. The project was approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in March.
Supporting the agreement with Grace were fellow Republican councilmen Greg Bernard and Tom Diana.
“I believe this is a good deal. The land would have been taken from us. It’s a no-brainer,” Bernard remarked. “There’s no downside to this other than we are going into a campaign. There’s a campaign going on and the battle lines have been drawn.”
Opposing the deal were Councilman Vishnu Patel, who is running against Grace for supervisor in November, and Councilwoman Susan Siegel, Patel’s running mate on the Democratic ticket.
“It’s not a good deal. We should maintain what we already have,” Patel said. “You can’t put a dollar value on a tree.”
The agreement calls for Spectra to build an access road to the Granite Knolls property, which Grace lamented Spectra had once proposed to develop for multi-purpose recreational fields at no cost to the town but were turned down by the board. The road would guarantee the town access to the property once Phoenix House is sold.
In 2010 Yorktown purchased the Granite Knolls site for $2.7 million ($900,000 was owed to the town in back taxes). $25,000 was later allocated to spruce up the property.
“Contrary to what Supervisor Grace has been saying, the record will show that when the Town Board purchased Granite Knolls in 2010, there was no agreed upon plan to use the land for active recreation,” explained Siegel, who was supervisor at the time. “The proposal put forward by then Councilman (Terrence) Murphy, who initially opposed purchasing the land, was only to spend $25,000 to ‘clean up’ an existing cleared area for use as practice fields. The record also shows that neither the Recreation Commission or the Parks and Recreation superintendent knew about Councilman Murphy’s plan before he publicly opposed it.”
“The public has been grossly misinformed and misled as to the cost of the Granite Knolls project,” Siegel added.
Several residents claimed the board was alienating parkland with the agreement, a contention Town Attorney Jeanette Koster disagreed with.
“By giving the seven-and-a-half acres you’re alienating. You just gave it another name,” Jane Daniels contended. “Why wasn’t the Conservation Board given the opportunity to weigh in on these plans?”
“It’s easy to take a shortcut and avoid the SEQRA process. The public has the right to know what’s going on,” said resident Paul Moskowitz.
Spectra is proposing to run another pipeline, four miles in length, from Stony Street to the Town of Somers. The Atlantic Bridge pipeline, which Spectra is looking to start constructing in 2017, would cross through some residential developments, Legacy Field and near Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin elementary schools and a playground on Curry Street.
As a tradeoff for disturbance of a right-of-way near the Indian Point nuclear power plants in Buchanan with its Algonquin expansion, Spectra will be restoring Junior Lake in Yorktown by planting 700 new trees and shrubs.
Rick has more than 40 years’ experience covering local news in Westchester and Putnam counties, running the gamut from politics and crime to sports and human interest. He has been an editor at Examiner Media since 2012. Read more from Rick’s editor-author bio here. Read Rick’s work here: https://www.theexaminernews.com/author/pezzullo_rick-writer/
