Town of Newburgh residents from Summer Drive, Barbara Court and other surrounding streets came together at the Town of Newburgh Planning Board meeting on May 4 to voice their concerns about traffic and vehicle impacts, the impact to the character of the community and not receiving proper notice about the meeting prior. No definitive timeline for the project was identified during the meeting.

Represented by T.M. Depuy Engineering & Land Surveying, PC the proposed development project known as Longview Farm is a 27 lot subdivision that involves the disturbance of 87.8 plus or minus acres with each lot proposed from l.7 to 6.4 plus or minus acres in size. Access to the project would be off Holmes Road, Barbara Drive and Dara Drive.

Individual wells and subsurface sanitary sewer disposal systems will service the lots. Project roadways are to be dedicated to the town, a storm water management plan has been developed, a drainage district will be established and would be developed in phases. The land for the project is located in the AR (agriculture) zoning district. The proposed project is subject to the architectural review board approval, tests of soil and renaming of roads will need to be reviewed pending approval of the project.

Dominic Cordisco, Planning Board Attorney, also provided a brief history of the project for the public. “This project has been pending since 2006 and it actually received approval in 2008. It then received conditional final approvals. Some work was done on the site and it then, however, stepped back down into preliminary approval because the project was never finalized for a variety of different reasons,” said Cordisco. “The board, given the current version of the plan, and the updates to it, has decided to hold a second public hearing regarding this proposal.”

Resident Kevin Bento brought forward the concerns about the area’s speed limit and the impact of the present retention ponds. “The retention ponds, or if you even call them that, have overflowed a couple times and caused damage to my road,” said Bento. Resident Mike Brown inquired to the board about stop signs, speed monitors and other methods to help protect his and the other families children along Dara Drive from fast drivers. “We only had about three houses on Dara Drive, all three houses have children,” said Brown.

Melissa Rosario brought forward the concern about her street still seeing an influx of traffic even though the road has been blocked off. Town Traffic Consultant Ken Wersted recommended that a correction be made to the mapping services to ensure that people do not get confused and get lost along the road.

Several residents stated to the board that they have not received a notice of the public hearing on the site though they are within the vicinity of the project. According to Cordisco, a list of households was prepared by the town assessor and notices were sent out and notices were also published in the local newspaper. The determined cause of residents not receiving the required mailings was a mailing error. The board was in favor of re-noticing the public hearing and the public would have another opportunity to comment in June.