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Development
After the recent Alden Town Board work session ended Tuesday evening, there appeared to be a universal outcry by core members of the Alden Residents for Responsible Growth (ARRG) coalition and their supporters that the downsized rezone proposal was nothing more than “smoke and mirrors.”
Project sponsor Frank Russo declares he is working toward compromise with the small- town community. Russo now only proposes to have 30.14 acres of property rezoned for the purpose of building a Wal-Mart. ARRG members and their attorney, David J. Seeger don’t see it that way, believing any development on the proposed site has the potential to cause adverse environmental impacts.
"They are carving out premier property and leaving a swamp," declared Seeger. "Who is going to pay taxes on a swamp?" Seeger also voiced concerns on waste seepage and resulting pollution from the proposed septic system. Big box stores would produce many tons of human waste in a short period of time being distributed directly through seepage or direct discharge into this aquifer.
For many other residents, the building of the Wal-Mart was still the focal point of resident opposition. According to the latest census, there are a total of 10,500 residents in the Town of Alden, 3,278 households. Of that number, 2,500 residents live in 800 households in the Village of Alden.
In comparison to two of its immediate neighbors, Alden has 10,500 individuals livening within 34.5 square miles; Lancaster 40,000 residents in 37.4 square miles; Marilla 5,700 residents in 27.6 miles. Whereas Lancaster has a population density of 1,070 residents per square mile, Alden’s population density is only 304 per square mile.
That’s just one of the major points of contention being shared by the ARRG coalition and their supporters. “We’re small town, that’s why we choose to live here and that’s the way we want to keep it. Bringing in a Wal-Mart would destroy the quality of life we have come to love. We need a department store and some smaller businesses, but not a mega mall with a “big box.” A retail and grocery store would bring an estimated 10,000 more daily vehicles to this location.”
The Wal-Mart concept differs little from the originally submitted design. It is believed by ARRG and their supporters that the reason the project sponsor withdrew his proposal to rezone the west property wetlands was that the denial for permits to fill them in and their mitigation could have jeopardized his Wal-Mart project.
Some residents assert that the environmental information submitted by Russo was incomplete.
At his work session presentation Richard J. Sherwood, Frank Russo’s attorney, declared, “Mr. Russo lives in Marilla, a town smaller than Alden, with less total commercial development than the old Ames Plaza. Perhaps Mr. Russo should think about proposing his development in Marilla where the medium family income is several thousand dollars more than in Alden. Let’s see if the residents of Marilla would like a Wal-Mart coming to their town.
Wetlands
At Tuesday’s Town Board work session, Attorney Sherwood declared the reason for the reduction in rezone size was because of land elevation and topography. According to Sherwood, there is a break-line diagonally in the center of the property, from southwest to northeast, with lower elevation to the west side of the property. “Issues which were raised by the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and Army Corps of Engineers (COE) relative to the potential of some wetlands on the western portion of the site are now moot,” said Sherwood.
In so many words Sherwood alludes to the possibility of wetlands on site. He also stated later on that, “The land to the west could still be farmed and is not in their sphere of interest.” Later yet, he stated, “The Corps of Engineers visited the sight and they have indicated that there is what they believe to be federal jurisdiction wetlands on site.”
When Alden Engineer Michael Metzger asked Sherwood, “What is the valid reason for now only asking us to rezone a portion of the property,” Sherwood replied, “He has no reason to develop that.” Many work session attendees voiced that Sherwood's responses were "evasive", to say the least
Metzger then asked Russo’s hired soil expert Don Owens his opinion regarding the property to the west. “After looking at the site several times, to ensure any proposed development was going to be away from the wetland to the west of the break-point line, we chose to be a 100 feet to the east of that line,” declared Owens. “You have non cohesive soil to the west and the boundary line is very sharp. Well, at least Owens fessed up to the fact that hydric soils and wetlands existed on the west side of the “breakpoint”.
Wetlands do exist on the site. The Corps of Engineers acknowledged it in a correspondence they sent to the ARRG coalition. ARRG had contacted the Corps regarding their concern that the property owner of the Martin Farm was creating ditches to drain the wetland to make it acceptable for development to take place.
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| Ditching on Martin Farm wetlands |
In the middle of November, a backhoe was spotted on the Martin farm ditching and flooding the adjoining properties. The week before, a backhoe ripped a ditch along the west side boundary and flooded many properties to the west.
ARRG sent aerial photos to the Corps illustrating their concern. Several of the photos show that several ditches were created. After they examined the photos and visited the site, the Corps ordered a halt to the land disturbance and wrote the following correspondence to ARRG:
Thank you for your interest in this site. In response to your inquiry I offer the following. The Corps is working with the landowner to resolve a violation of Section 404 of the Clean Water Act (CWA). The owner is actively trying to resolve the violation; however due to factors such as inclement weather and miscommunications between the owner and site contractor (corrected), the resolution is still ongoing.
To clarify, a Department of the Army permit has not been issued to this property owner. The Corps did issue a restoration order which requires the owner to perform certain actions at the site.
The one "ditch" you refer to is an existing drainage-way which has been present for 25 plus years. Certain maintenance activities can be performed in this area which does not require Department of the Army authorization.
The property owner is cooperating to resolve this matter so at this time no additional penalties other than restoration are being considered.
The Corps is working to resolve the CWA violation. However, there are numerous activities, some associated with farming, which the Corps does not regulate. The Corps continues to focus on resolving the violation and on all regulated activities which have occurred in jurisdictional areas on-site. The Corps has not received any applications for development at this site.
The bit about "farming" is an excuse that someone can use for destroying wetlands legally by using the agriculture exemption in NYS DEC wetland laws. They have to keep the land in agriculture, however. They can't destroy wetlands by farming them just to later use the destroyed wetland area for development.
The regulatory agencies rarely catch it when this happens and certain “consultants” has been known to tell developers to farm first, destroy the wetlands, and then hope that regulators don't figure out the land was originally wetlands. With the many historic and current aerial photos now available, it is harder for developers to pull this trick out of their hat.
Should the wetlands be drained in future years, will the project sponsor revisit the board for rezone approval to build out the entire site? Bears watching!
Pollution
If Wal-Mart avoids all wetlands, the Corps of Engineers will have NO say over the project unless the Corps wants to get into aquifer pollution potential, but water protection is definitely a NYSDEC item. In August 2006, a correspondence was sent to the town by the DEC informing them that the land contains a single source aquifer. This aquifer supplies much of the town with its well water.
Only 5% of NYS has an aquifer for clean well water and water systems. Alden is almost completely dependant on well water for pure water purposes. Run off from blacktop and human waste sewage systems being discharged into an area as unique as Alden’s topography is of concern.
Russo and his attorney told the Town Board not to worry concerning storm water control and septic system operation re pollution. Don Owens, Russo’s soil expert was asked “Won’t water from the lot migrate down to the aquifer?” Owens answered that it would but it would then migrate to the northwest – the direction of flow from the Allegheny Plateau. “That’s why you have seepage on the northwest side,” Owens added.
ARRG challenges that claim. They believe an in-depth hydrological report detailing the direction of flow, etc. It is suspected that the drainage may actually flow toward Cayuga Creek. The project is on both on the Allegheny and Ellicott watershed. The water flows from the upland would run southwest to Cayuga Creek and northeast to Ellicott Creek. A letter sent to the board expresses grave concern about the ability of the developer's storm water detention and septic plans to treat the project without impacting the community, economically and environmentally:
"There are some issues raised by Mr. Russo at the Town Board Work session on Dec. 26 that warrant further investigation regarding rezoning and potential future development of the Martin Property on Broadway. Even with the elimination of the wetland property, there are un-addressed environmental technical issues that were not anticipated that may impact the economic viability of developing this property.
Keep in mind that this proposal will not only affect the 21.4 acre parcel currently under review, but should address the 500 foot C-1 zone that is not currently under consideration for immediate development.
A) There was an issue of installing a retention basin on this property during site development for future use. I am assuming that this is to retain collected stormwater from roof and parking lot drains. Where will this water go after retention? Is it allowed to percolate through the soils? Will it be transmitted to the Alden Municipal Stormwater system (the one that will be built with whose $?
Will it be pumped to a tanker for transmission and release to a Publicly Owned Treatment Works, POTW, (Which community has the additional capacity)?
Since stormwater from parking lots may be contaminated with petroleum based automotive fluids, will pretreatment be included as part of the stormwater collection system? Are site grading plans designed to prevent migration of surface stormwater in to the adjoining wetland areas? Also, please keep in mind that any stormwater discharge point (outfall) requires a State Pollution Discharge Elimination System (SPEDES) permit and identification.
B) This retention basin was also mentioned in conjunction with a Septic System. Septic Systems usually require a Septic Tank and a Leach Field. If the report of Mr. Owens (soil scientist and geologist) is correct, this area should be suitable for a leach field. But what septic wastewater handling capacity would be anticipated? Big box stores would produce many tons of human waste in a short period of time being distributed directly through seepage or direct discharge into this aquifer.
Please keep in mind that any septic system from a commercial establishment which discharges over 1000 gallons per day requires a SPEDES permit and is viewed as an Underground Injection Control (UIC) Point (waste injection well).
In my experience, NYSDEC is not too keen on issuing permits for UIC's at this time. It would also be prudent to identify who will be the lead agency for receipt of SPEDES permit monitoring data. However, if no septic system is installed, how will sanitary wastewater be handled? If a POTW is involved, which one will it be?
The Village of Alden system and plant or one of the mini-plants previously erected to service subdivisions? All are currently at capacity for processing sanitary wastewater. This would require a new plant of one type or another, who is planning on paying for this, the developer, Wal-Mart or the Alden Town Taxpayer?"
Access road / traffic
Sherwood declared that it was the developer’s and the engineer’s belief that this kind of development would not cause any kind of serious impediment or traffic jam. “Customers come and go to a development, they don’t arrive all at the same time,” he declared. “There will be signalization at Four Rod and Broadway.”
10,000 estimated daily trip generations added by a Wal-Mart should be enough to concern anyone living in a town with 10,500 residents; most of them wanting to maintain their “small town” culture. And, there will be added traffic from “smaller” future businesses established on the properties frontage.
Sherwood also declared, “It would make more sense to have a site access at that intersection. That driveway at Four Rod may be the only other access point, as the state wants internalized traffic for larger development areas. Four Rod lends itself to the development of this site, or any development that would take place there.”
Where is this road to be located? Why are they even referring to an access road on Four Rod Road if the project sponsor’s intent is to only build out the Wal-Mart and the front parcels?
Assuming this will be a 155,000 square foot store and a parking lot of appropriate size to handle customer vehicle traffic, would the Broadway only access hinder access for emergency vehicles (Fire and EMS)? Is the single access in accordance with current emergency planning practice for large commercial occupancies – fire and police codes?
ARRG voices concerns over cost of added policing, firefighting, infrastructure improvements. Their community will be adversely impacted by added air and water pollution, traffic, noise, etc.
When many available sites to the west are already zoned appropriately, ARRG questions why this parcel is of particular interest to the project sponsor? Why shouldn’t the town take a position that the project sponsor should consider alternate sites?
Some believe the C2 rezone classification is sought to avoid having to get variances for the Wal-Mart operation. C1 is for retail they claim.
The Alden residents who shared their thoughts and concerns with the writer share a common thought: We just love this place the way it is. We have a spot in town for a store, and that’s what we want a store. It doesn't matter who... It just matters where.... and the area that the proposed site being considered is not acceptable. We have the plaza in town, its empty and more than ready for a new tenant, whether it would be a K-MART, TARGET, KOHL’S, whatever!
Russo claims he is open to comments and concerns. He is sure to get them at the upcoming public hearing!
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