By Ashley M. Casey

Associate Editor

White Pine Commerce Park in the town of Clay could become home to what Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon calls “one of the biggest economic development opportunities in New York State history,” but several Burnet Road residents are concerned the proposed project will erase the history of their quiet neighborhood.

The Onondaga County Industrial Development Agency (OCIDA) is looking to expand the 450-acre business park, which is located at the intersection of Route 31 and Caughdenoy Road, to accommodate the needs of the semiconductor manufacturers the county is courting. Semiconductors are used to make computer chips for a variety of electronic devices, including cars, solar panels and cellphones.

According to OCIDA’s marketing materials for White Pine, the business park is “ideally located” near major East Coast markets, the deep-water port of Lake Ontario and Interstates 90, 81, 481 and 690. Most importantly, it is near a National Grid substation that  has “enough ability … to power a large city,” as McMahon told Spectrum News in January.

OCIDA currently controls about 1,000 acres in the area and is hoping to add acquire about 250 more acres. In September 2020, OCIDA purchased 198 acres on Burnet Road for $500,000. The year before, the agency purchased 106 acres on Route 31 and Burnet Road for $900,000. The Post-Standard reported in 2020 that the county has invested $5.3 million in the vacant industrial park since the 1990s.

In the fall of 2020, more homeowners on Burnet Road began to receive letters from a real estate agent representing OCIDA asking if they were interested in selling their homes.

Michelle Nuzzo has lived on Burnet Road for more than 12 years. She and her fiancé have made thousands of dollars of improvements to her property: a new roof, a patio and a fence around the yard.

“I’m not at a point in my life where I want to sell and find a new home,” Nuzzo told the Star-Review.

In October, McMahon and OCIDA Executive Director Robert Petrovich met with a group of Burnet Road residents at Clay Town Hall.

“We basically we were promised that we would be treated fairly and that we would be kept in the loop on things,” Nuzzo said.

In December, Nuzzo created the “Clay Homes Preservation Coalition (CHPC)” Facebook group to rally her neighbors against what they feel is increasing pressure to sell their homes to OCIDA. The following month, Burnet Road resident Maureen Matthews started a Change.org petition titled “Say ‘NO’ to a massive INDUSTRIAL FACILITY in Clay, NY.” At press time, more than 700 people had signed the petition. Several neighbors have retained a lawyer to communicate with OCIDA on their behalf.

Residents reluctant to sell

Jill O’Brien said her elderly mother, Barbara O’Brien, is “having a very, very difficult time” facing the prospect of leaving the home she has lived in for decades.

“She’s still in the home that my father built with his own two hands and to have that home demolished to have an industrial park is shameful,” Jill O’Brien said. “When my parents moved there it was a dirt road — it was the Old Cow Path Road.”

O’Brien said her mother turned down OCIDA’s offer to purchase the home, to which the family has added handicap-accessible adjustments for Barbara, who uses a walker.

“Low-balling them with the offers and then threatening eminent domain — it’s harassment,” O’Brien said. “My mom can’t sleep at night. She’s losing her hair. She’s in a nervous panic 24 hours a day.”

Like O’Brien, Paul and Robin Richer both grew up on Burnet Road.

“He married the farmer’s daughter; I married the boy next door,” Robin Richer said.

After they married, the Richers lived in a home on the top of the road for 34 years. Five years ago, they moved to Paul’s childhood home.

“We’re actually living in the house my father built in 1954,” Paul Richer said.

The Richers received an offer from OCIDA just before Christmas, and they wrote back saying they were not interested.

“With the offers they’re giving us, they’re not considering the inconvenience of moving away from a place you never wanted to move away from,” Paul Richer said.

Like Nuzzo and O’Brien, the Richers said they have made improvements to their home over the years, and there are still changes they’d like to make.

“We’ve got a lot of maintenance projects on hold. Life is pretty much on hold,” Paul Richer said. “With that in the back of your mind, you tend to lose a little bit of sleep.”

“They try to use scare tactics to get people to sell because they’re trying to divide us and conquer us and pay us as little as possible,” Nuzzo said.

According to Nuzzo, OCIDA told some Burnet Road residents that their properties were already zoned for commercial use, but the town of Clay told her the properties are still zoned residential/agricultural.

Some homeowners expressed concern about the environmental impact of a large manufacturing project. In December, the OCIDA board approved a positive State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) declaration, which means “there is a potential for significant environmental impact for future development for this area.” The board voted to reopen the 2013 general environmental impact statement, which was written when White Pine was only 336 acres. A new environmental review will take place to examine the potential environmental effects of developing a 1,253-acre site.

“Environmentally, this doesn’t just impact people on our road. It affects people north of us. We have Youngs Creek behind our house which is where all the runoff would go into the Oneida River,” Paul Richer said.

O’Brien said the area is home to wild turkeys and deer and contains wetlands.

“We don’t want to see harmful chemicals going into the community. We don’t want to see people getting sick, land being destroyed,” she said. “Why don’t they take pieces of land that are already developed and [tailor] those to their needs instead of destroying what we call a little piece of heaven?”

‘Game-changing economic development’

Ryan McMahon told the Star-Review he understands the Burnet Road residents’ anxiety, but the economic benefits to Onondaga County outweigh the negatives.

“The aspect the community should celebrate is the White Pine Business Park is one of a handful of sites in North America that can host a large energy user. If you think of the superhighway of electric utilities in New York State, White Pine is at the crossroads,” McMahon said.

McMahon said the county is in talks with “multi-billion dollar companies with thousands of jobs.”

“We’re talking about game-changing economic development,” he said.

Due to nondisclosure agreements with the companies that are looking into White Pine, McMahon cannot disclose who the prospective tenants are or exactly how much land they would need.

“I wish I knew what the specifications were for the end user today,” he said. “Because we don’t know, we’re trying to get flexibility.”

OCIDA needs 1,253 acres of land for “maximum flexibility,” McMahon said, but it might not end up using all of the land it acquires.

“We’re probably going to close on property that we’ll never need,” he said.

What residents need to understand, McMahon explained, is that White Pine will be developed eventually. And just as homeowners can build swimming pools and sheds on their properties, Onondaga County can build on the property it owns as long as it adheres to the town of Clay’s code.

“What else are we supposed to do? It’s our property. We can put a manufacturing facility there,” he said. “We can always improve on any communication if people feel like we’re falling short, but many people live next to this business park that’s zoned for industrial use. It’s in the [town of Clay’s] master plan. I talk about it in my state of the county addresses, the county legislature talks about it, OCIDA publicizes everything.”

McMahon said a “supermajority” of homeowners on Burnet Road have already agreed to sell their homes or sign option contracts. He said the residents opposed to the idea of selling their homes are a vocal minority.

“Everybody who has come to an agreement has done very, very well. They’ve gotten above market rate for their properties,” he said.

Ultimately, McMahon is hoping to come to a compromise with the homeowners who are holding out for a higher price. He said he wants every stakeholder to feel they’ve been treated fairly even if the outcome isn’t exactly what they wanted.

“If we get the big project and we need their property to make it happen, I’m going to sit down with them and have a dialogue,” he said.

McMahon said the public will have “plenty of opportunity for comment” as the environmental review process continues.

In the meantime, the public can access OCIDA’s meeting notices, agendas and minutes at ongoved.com/ocida/meetings/.