MANLIUS- Residents living near the proposed Hoag Lane subdivision made their opposition to the 21-home proposal abundantly clear at a public hearing of the Manlius Planning Board on Monday, Feb. 22.
About a dozen area residents spoke on Monday night. All were opposed to the project, citing concerns with storm water runoff, construction duration and traffic, lot sizes that don’t conform with the neighborhood, the safety of a proposed retention pond, the clearing of wooded land and the potential for breaching forever wild covenants, as well as several other issues. Many of those who spoke said they already deal with flooding and are concerned the additional runoff from the development will exacerbate the problem.
“There will be more water coming off that site. Period,” said Chuck White of Shiraz Lane, an engineer who gave an extensive overview of the project. “This will result in extended flooding events, which already occur.”
“It can be mitigated, in part, by canceling the proposal or reducing the footprint [of the development],” he said.
In addition to those who spoke at the meeting, the board has received written correspondence from about 15 people.
The hearing was closed on Monday night, but the public comment period will remain open until March 5.
Plans call for a single entrance into the subdivision from Hoag Lane, across from the intersection with Shiraz Lane. The 21 homes would be situated on a circle that encompasses about 20 acres of the property, with a buffer of forever wild land around the perimeter of the 30-acre parcel. A large retention pond would be created to prevent additional stormwater runoff from the site.
In August, the planning board made a positive declaration as part of the state environmental quality review process, meaning they believed the project would have a significant negative environmental impact. That decision required the developer to respond to a series of questions about mitigating those impacts. The developer’s responses were submitted to the board in December.
Nadine Bell is an attorney with Costello, Cooney & Fearon, representing a number of the neighbors. She told the planning board that the developers essentially repackaged their original plans without addressing any of the board’s concerns about mitigating stormwater runoff, blaming the board’s original criticisms on its reliance on “alternative facts.”
“Essentially, the applicant is saying ‘we’re not willing to offer any further mitigation, any efforts to mitigate the proposed impacts on stormwater surface runoff or stormwater facilities,’” she said. “They’re taking a kind of a ‘pound salt’ approach.”
Area resident Matt Mulcahy, in his overview of the project, agreed that the developer had failed to adequately address the questions the board posed last August.
“There hasn’t been anything new generated on this in over a year, despite your specific request put together by Doug Miller, the engineer, and the board, saying this is what we need to make this happen,” Mulcahy told the board. “[The developer’s] answers ignore or really don’t accept the premise of the board’s questions. No progress is being made on these unresolved issues. It really is an impasse.”
“It leaves one answer,” Mulcahy continued. “It’s time to reject either the SEQR or the plan overall, and it’s ok to do that.”
Following the public comment period, Vaughn Lang, attorney for the developer, said the water running through the property comes primarily from two pipes that are owned by the town and are connected to neighborhoods that are uphill from the development site. The water problems that people in the Hoag Lane neighborhood have experienced are the responsibility of the town, he said, not the developer.
“We’re ready to sit and talk about the problems, but we’re not ready to sit and solve the town’s problems that have been experienced over the decades,” Lang said. “When you’ve heard all of the issues, and you examine them, many, many, many issues are in regard to the flooding. We haven’t done anything.”
“The question becomes,one of, ‘what is the town going to do with this issue?’” Lang said.