UPDATED: Final Environmental Impact Statement for Chappaqua Crossing expected later this summer

UPDATE: June 7, 2010
by Christine Yeres

[Editor’s Note: Since publishing this article last Friday, Supervisor Barbara Gerrard informed NCNOW.org that the final EIS will not be submitted mid- to late-June, but later in summer.]

The New Castle town board, lead agency for N.Y. State environmental review purposes, is in the last stages of reviewing Summit Greenfield’s final environmental impact statement (FEIS) for its proposed development of the former Reader’s Digest property, now called Chappaqua Crossing.  With the help of expert consultants whose fees are passed on to the developer, the board has reviewed the massive documents submitted by the developer and by mid-to-late June will produce a final EIS of its own that will be an actual narrative, shorter than the raw documents and in readable form, according to New Castle Town Supervisor Barbara Gerrard.

In cases where experts differ, the board will decide which expert opinion to adopt.  “It becomes a dialogue between the applicant and the lead agency by that point,” explained Gerrard. “If Summit Greenfield feels it can make some part of the EIS better and wants another chance, the board can let them, or we can take it from them and tell them ‘You had your chance, we’re taking it from here.’” 

The town board will provide an opportunity for the public to comment on the board’s final EIS, although Gerrard noted that it would not be considered a formal hearing and the developer will not be required to respond to comments as in the scoping sessions, but, according to Gerrard, “the town board is listening.”

Afterwards, the town board will issue its findings, Gerrard explained, “which have to be supported by what’s in the FEIS.  We may, for example, recognize that there are problems, and accept this or that mitigation as adequate, or as inadequate.  We won’t approve anything that we believe would be really bad. Board members will try to go in with an open mind.  There are needs on the town’s part and needs on the applicant’s part.  And we recognize that there are problems.  Everyone wishes Reader’s Digest had stayed a busy corporate entity that employed people still and left a lot of green space.  But we know this: that in 1995 Reader’s Digest paid 3.3% of the town’s and school district’s taxes, and now, by 2010, it’s 1.1%.”

Town will include Summit Greenfield sewer extension request in its request for Random Farms, Riverwoods and Yeshiva

The town board decided to add the portion of the Reader’s Digest property that is not already serviced by sewers to its own request for sewer extension for Random Farms, Riverwoods and Yeshiva.  Each of those communal septic systems has been in fail mode for years and poses problems to the protected Croton Watershed, which provides water to New York City. 

Sewer extension requests by the town have so far failed mainly because the sewage treatment center in Yonkers declines to accept additional “affluent effluent” from northern towns. “Since Summit Greenfield are the owners of the property and the request must come from the municipality,” said Gerrard, “we can hardly refuse the developer’s request.  We can’t tell the County what it can and cannot do, so from the point of view of those existing areas of New Castle where residents need sewers, if the county granted Summit Greenfield a sewer extension and didn’t allow it for [Random Farms, Riverwoods and Yeshiva], Summit Greenfield might have a public relations problem on their hands.”