Yorktown’s Advisory Boards Rightly Reject Underhill Farm Proposal
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The Planning Board asked four of the town’s advisory boards for feedback on the controversial Underhill Farm development plan. It got an earful at the Mar. 8 joint meeting. None of the boards supported the current plan. All had significant issues with it. All wanted to see major changes to the plan, not simple tweaks.
Each of the four boards had serious issues with the plan as it affected their areas of focus. Some cited the need for missing information while others indicated gross inadequacies and misrepresentations in the information the developer had submitted. The responses from the developer’s representatives did not clarify the issues.
Conservation Board
The board disagreed with the developer’s delineation of the site’s multiple wetlands and wetland buffers. Even a member of the Planning Board who walked the site, and the town’s environmental consultant, disagreed with the developer’s delineation. The Conservation Board also questioned the appropriateness of citing dwelling units in the wetland buffer.
Recreation Commission
Under existing Town Code, a developer is responsible for paying either a fee for every proposed dwelling unit or dedicating land for public recreation. The commission rejected Unicorn’s plan to create a public park around the pond and instead wants the money – $592,000 – that it would use to repair and/or replace aging and unsafe park facilities it said were in “dire straits.”
Heritage Preservation Commission
The commission thanked the Planning Board for requesting that the town hire an outside independent historic consultant to review the many deficiencies in the developer’s historic studies, including resolving the property’s potential archeological value relating to a possible Revolutionary War French army encampment on the property and potential Underground Railroad activity at the site before the land is disturbed.
Calling the plan’s high density the “elephant in the room,” the commission said that most of the property’s historic features were severely compromised or flat out ignored in favor of the developer’s profits. The commission asked the Planning Board to require the developer to submit alternative development plans with fewer dwelling units and the elimination of commercial space.
Community Housing Board
While acknowledging the need for senior housing, the board’s chairman said the current Underhill Farm housing mix didn’t address the housing needs of Yorktown’s young families, single folks coming back after college and empty-nesters who want to downsize.
The Planning Board got the feedback it asked for. Now it is compelled to act on the feedback and direct the developer to revise the Underhill Farm plan so that its defects are addressed.
Trish Sullivan-Rothberg
Yorktown
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