Last week the Lloyd Planning Board approved a Mixed Use project proposed by Highland 3555 LLC, containing 140 apartments and commercial space on the ground floors of four, three story buildings fronting directly onto Route 9W where there once was an auto dealership.

 

On August 21 the Planning Board granted a Negative Declaration [NegDec] for the project, which requires a lesser amount of environmental review by a developer. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation [NYSDEC] points out that, ‘Every negative declaration must: identify the relevant areas of environmental concern; thoroughly analyze the relevant concerns; and document the determination, in writing, showing the reasons why the environmental concerns that were identified and analyzed will not be significant. Unsupported statements such as “The action will not have a significant impact” or “No significant impacts were identified in the Environmental Assessment Form [EAF]” are assertions that are not legally sufficient for a negative declaration. Such statements must be supported with adequate detail to explain why there will be no significant impacts.’

 

For a Type I action, the agency must, in addition to maintaining a file that is readily accessible to the public, prepare, file, publish and distribute the Negative Declaration as described in section 617.12 For an Unlisted Action, the reviewing agency must maintain a file readily accessible to the public containing the Negative Declaration.

 

At both Planning Board meetings, on the NegDec and Site Plan Approval, no documents were made available to the public to ascertain if the legal requirements of the DEC were being properly followed.   

 

At the August 21 meeting Gerald Marion was the only board member to raise a number of issues that he thought would have moderate to significant impacts. He said the project is too large and is too close to Route 9W; the traffic in and out of the project is via a single point of access and between the commercial and residential components, may have from 300 to 500 vehicles daily causing a moderate to significant impact; he questioned whether the project is in sync with the town’s zoning code and the comprehensive plan and said the overall project will have a significant impact on the character of the community.  

 

The public was most concerned about the amount of traffic coming in and out of the project and that it dumps directly onto a busy Rt. 9w. Many said there will be accidents involving vehicles coming out of the complex, especially when crossing three lanes while trying to go north on Rte. 9w.

 

The Ulster County Planning Board [UCPB] also weighed in on this issue, noting in their 6/4/25 recommendation, that they, “remain concerned about the safety of northbound egress movements across three lanes of traffic and whether there are sufficient gaps to make this turning movement, especially at the AM/PM/Saturday peak hours” The UCPB made a gap analysis for northbound egress movements a required modification.

 

The UCPB also issued a required recommendation that residents of the proposed project be allowed gated/electronic access onto Roberto Drive to facilitate vehicle trips into the hamlet and to reduce the number of vehicles turning north onto Route 9w. The developer’s representatives have stated that access to Roberto Drive will only be for emergency personnel and vehicles.

 

This project will also provide 10% of Affordable Housing as is required in the Town Code. Although this has been required since the affordable provision was approved about 14 years ago, not one developer has had to meet this stipulation until now.

 

On August 28 the Planning Board approved the site plan for this project and again Gerald Marion was the lone no vote.