SAVE Colonie Members:
Next Tuesday, September 26th, the TOC Planning Board meeting (7 PM Ops Center, Wade & Niskayuna Rds) will consist in its entirety of a presentation of the proposed updated Airport Area GEIS by Joe Grasso and Chris Einstein of Clough Harbor Associates.
PLEASE consider attending this important presentation. Here’s why:
The Airport Area GEIS, from 1991, has been used for 26 years to fulfill the town’s responsibilities under the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA). Generally speaking, the GEIS predicted likely development within its approximately 8500 acre boundaries, estimated the cumulative impacts such likely development would have upon infrastructure, schools, roads, water systems and more, and the cumulative costs to the town of mitigating such impacts. Mitigation fees were then established, based upon all these predictions and estimates.
Ever since, we have been using mitigation fees based upon a 26 year old projection of likely development in the Town, and a 1991 estimate of the costs to mitigate development impacts upon our town’s environment, infrastructure, and quality of life. These fees are supposed to cover the town's infrastructure expenses caused by growth.
This long-awaited update to the Airport Area GEIS should bring fees into line with today’s costs. It should take into consideration the massive growth TOC has experienced in the past 26 years, as well as the increased traffic, density, infrastructure impacts, school population and more. It comes as the Town is engaged in updating its Comprehensive Land Use Plan, there’s a major study underway of the Albany-Shaker Road corridor, and as we approach a town-wide election.
We assume there will not be a vote, since this is the first anyone has seen the new GEIS, and it has not yet been available to the public.
A copy of the 1991 Airport Area GEIS is available on the PEDD website by clicking the GEIS tab. We should read the short explanatory Executive Summary and the SEQRA (State Environmental Quality Review Act) findings to prep for the meeting.
Here is the link: http://coloniepedd.org/index.php?page=173
SAVE hopes to see a big turnout Tuesday night!