Looking Ahead to Next Week
The Planning Board is scheduled to meet on Tuesday, June 9, at 6:00 p.m. For those expecting that the public hearing on the conditional use permits sought by A. Colarusso & Sons will continue at that meeting, Planning Board chair Betsy Gramkow just announced that Colarusso has asked to be taken off the agenda for the meeting. They are assembling truck data and doing a new traffic study, which will not be ready in time for the June 9 meeting. The public hearing on the Colarusso applications will resume at the Planning Board's July meeting.
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In a SEQR review's analysis of project alternatives, potential truck numbers resulting from the proposed action must even be considered for subsequent owners. Past truck numbers are interesting, but they don't tell the whole story.
ReplyDeleteFrom the City's perspective, a useful study would be the number of trucks that are possible on the existing one-lane private road today if the causeway were used in both directions of travel. After all, that was the City's preferred alternative in the 2011 SEQR review.
For all we know, the potential number of trucks on the existing causeway used both ways is equal to or higher than the peak number now thought possible.
If true, then so be it. That is the maximum number of trucks allowable under the existing Zoning Code.
But if it’s merely instructive to conduct a study of the existing road when used in both directions of travel, then it's an unavoidable requirement of SEQR's "hard look" that the potential truck numbers reaching the dock as a result of the proposed action be studied from every angle.
When it comes to truck numbers, this is where everyone's focus should be.
What dates does the traffic study include? Presumably construction has been slower across the state and their truck traffic has been down, so their recent numbers are hardly instructive.
ReplyDeleteGood point. But like I’ve been saying since the beginning, why do those numbers even matter?
DeleteNo one’s ever explained that. They just double down on the same pointless question.
The gobsmacked Applicant has finally accepted that the obsession with past truck numbers is not a red herring. It was just the wrong question all along.
ReplyDeleteAt some point a clever adversary would seize the same issue to disseminate its own red herring, but to carry it off effectively takes time.
So nobody has any idea how to answer that, do they (which merits reflection in itself).
ReplyDeleteBe careful what you ask for, because in the end we'll be trapped by the answer to our own mindless insistence.
Don't we have any chess enthusiasts out there?
C'mon people, get a clue.
Someone please explain the significance of learning the current truck numbers. Defend what's by now a widespread obsession (a.k.a. the delusions of crowds).
ReplyDeleteThere's no good answer!!
But there are much better truck questions to ask which don't deliver us into a trap of our own making.
If we don't want to get caught flat-footed, then we should learn how the system works:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/permits_ej_operations_pdf/seqrhandbook.pdf
If you want to see how many trucks they can run on the causeway, all the city has to do is ban trucks on city streets. Then all you have to do is count them. Exceptions could be made for retail and homeowner deliveries, fuel oil etc. Not too hard to do, pass a law and post some signs.
ReplyDeleteLOL
DeleteNot too hard to do, the actual homework and learn the issues.
DeleteWe're in agreement, but after years and years of plowing these fields it seems that, for almost everyone, mastery of SEQRA (the State Environmental Quality Review Act) is a bridge too far.
DeleteYou get to a point where you have to wonder, Is there just too much democracy in New York?
If that question seems offensive to some, then my neighbors ought to know that it's the people who defend and enforce SEQRA. And when the people fail this covenant they hand the fate of the environment, whether good or bad, to the lowest levels of local government.
The trick to SEQRA which befuddles everyone is that it's HOLISTIC. We flatter ourselves that we're progressive and advanced, but that is the bridge which is too far.
Ecologists like you and I have no trouble understanding it.