Representatives of the Sheffield Gardens Project, during the Town of Montgomery’s February 10 planning board meeting, presented plans for a 261-unit, multifamily apartment complex proposed for a vacant property south of Route 17K, raising concerns from a few residents who live in the area. The project’s developers returned before the planning board during its March 10 meeting, this time receiving triple the comments from residents compared to the last hearing.

The applicant, MILR, has sought to develop their property for years, and they submitted Sheffield Garden’s plans to the town a few years ago. Besides the apartment units, the development would include 819 parking spaces, water and sewer utilities, several outdoor amenities, and a commercial building with an undetermined use. The project would be accessible through an entrance on Route 17K, requiring a left-turn lane to be installed on the road, and an emergency passage on Montgomery Heights Road.

Zach Szabo, P.E. at Engineering & Surveying Properties, did not have any updates on the project, but rather he and the other representatives were present to receive more feedback from residents.

“We were in front of the board last month and accepted comments from the public,” Szabo said. “We are here tonight to listen to the public comment further.”

During the hearing’s public comment portion, over a dozen residents who live near the project site reiterated and expanded on their concerns brought forward during the last month’s hearing. While these residents were not opposed to development on Route 17K, they felt that the project’s drafted environmental impact study, or DEIS, failed to address the issues that this apartment complex could post for its neighbors and the surrounding environment.

The biggest concern by far was traffic; residents who live on Montgomery Heights Road and Bailey Road asserted that Route 17K already suffered from speeding, congestion, and frequent car accidents. They stressed that a project like Sheffield gardens could accelerate these conditions, beyond the 2% increase listed in the DEIS. A few residents also noted that Route 17K is not wide enough to support a new left-lane turn.

“I’ve heard from many residents of the Bailey Road area who are afraid to turn left onto 17K east from Bailey Road due to poor visibility, high volume of traffic, and high speed of traffic on 17K,” said Resident Louis Doro. “Most of these people turn right from Bailey Road onto 17K west, and either use the Valley Central roads or Montgomery Heights to turn around to head east on 17K. This is not our idea of a safe roadway, and it is only going to worse.”

“Where is this left-turn lane going to go? That road is not wide enough to accommodate that. Not to mention, to accommodate that, you would have to take away from what I would consider to be a bike lane or a walking lane,” said resident Charlie Thompson. “So I don’t understand how that’s going to accommodate a left-hand turn. This is a large amount of vehicle traffic for such a small road.”

“The proposed turning lane is going to be right in front of my house. It’s impossible to get in my driveway as it is, let alone get out of my driveway,” said Resident Brenda Duff. “I have to back into my driveway in order to be able to get out of my driveway.”

Many residents were worried about how Sheffield Garden would impact the area’s water supply, stating that the project would diminish their water quality and quantity. They brought up the project’s sewer treatment plant and discussed how the plant’s discharge may cause flooding along Route 17K, including Scott’s Corners Golf Course.

“My concern is the discharge of an on-site sewage treatment plant into the swamp behind Richard’s, which flows down past my property and my neighbor’s property off of Knapp Lane,” said resident Ron Trent. “To me, that stream does not have enough water flow to support a discharge from a sewage treatment plant. There are times of the year in the fall and winter where it’s dry, and then there are spring floods, but it doesn’t seem like an on-site sewage treatment plant is the right way for this project to go.”

“Any additional water that gets added into this will not only back flow into people’s backyards, the stream that’s running down 208 will affect every property from us to the Wallkill River. There’s no way it can handle any sort of additional capacity,” said David Lehrer, a proprietor of Scott’s Corners Golf Course. “We’ve been fortunate the last couple of years with droughts, but you add any significant rainfall, then we flood, and they flood, just by Mother Nature. Adding anything else to that, there’s no telling where that water is going to go.

Some residents mentioned that the project’s treatment plant was too close to Richard’s Dairy Shed, a longtime ice cream stand in the town, and they speculated that the plant’s visibility, odors, and potential flooding could harm the business.

Several residents also felt that the project would further displace the local wildlife, pushing them away from their habitats and into people’s backyards or onto Route 17K.

“There are deer, blue herrings, hawks, eagles, ducks, geese, and swans. They already have limited space in that area on that road,” said Carlos Cortez. “Where do they plan on going? And if the water is discharged into the wetlands, how much treated water is going into the wetlands? Has there been any studies on how it will affect the wildlife in that area?”

Following public comment, Szabo requested the planning board to close the DEIS portion of the hearing while keeping the project’s other hearings open. He explained that the developers cannot begin addressing residents’ comments without starting the project’s final environmental impact study, or FEIS.
“At this time, we do not intend to respond to any comment until the DEIS public hearing is closed. This is standard procedure, all these comments will be addressed in the FEIS,” Szabo said. “This is similar to what we had requested at the previous meeting, and the comments from this meeting are very similar to the previous meeting.”

Similar to the last hearing, the planning board denied Szabo’s request to close the DEIS hearing. PB Chairman Jay Beaumont asserted that, given the concerns from this and last meeting, the developers still have a lot of work to do on their DEIS. Additionally, the board is waiting to hear back from the Montgomery Fire Department, the Valley Central School District, the NYS Department of Transportation, and the town’s consultants.

The board agreed to extend the project’s hearing until April 15 at 7:45 p.m.