The third public hearing on the Durst DEIS was held in Milan Town Hall on March 6. Turnout from Milan residents was very disappointing. We should have packed Town Hall, but instead the seats were half empty. Maybe we’re doing too good a job on covering these hearings—people figure they don’t have to come to find out what’s happening—but in fact your presence is extremely important. By attending the hearings you can learn about the project for yourself and hear the presentations from both the Durst consultants and the consultants brought in by citizen organizations such as Pine Plains United and Scenic Hudson. You also have the opportunity to hear valuable public comment from other citizens and comment yourself. 

Fortunately, you’ll have one last chance to attend a public hearing. The Pine Plains Planning Board, in response to the many requests they received, has scheduled a final hearing for SATURDAY, April 5, starting at 9:30 a.m. in Pine Plains at Stissing Mountain High School on Route 199. If you haven’t been able to get to the earlier hearings because they’ve all been on weeknights, now’s your chance to be there in person. It’s our understanding that at this hearing there will presentations by Durst and also by experts from PPU and Scenic Hudson. (We’ll update you as the date gets closer.) Please, people, try to be there—it’s important.

What Happened at the Milan Hearing

The DEIS states that the project will involved the creation of approximately 60,000 linear feet of new roads; about 6,000 feet of this will be in Milan. Dan Stone, the Durst project engineer, is proud of his single-crown road design because it will require less disturbance (although the roads have no sidewalks). However, as Glenn Butler, Milan Highway Superintendent, pointed out, the design calls for roads that are 20 feet wide, but Milan requires them to be 22 feet wide. Glenn also said he would be submitting written comments. A few other speakers briefly brought up emergency services issues. Jane Waters, a member of the steering committee of Pine Plains United, brought up the “mitigation” measure suggested in chapter 14: going to paid fire and ambulance service. She expressed substantial doubt that the tax revenue from the project would cover the costs of this, including salaries, equipment, and capital expenses for new structures and vehicles. The additional expenses would be largely borne by the local communities.

Planning Board Chair Don Bartles then asked if there was any additional comment from anyone else, such as the Conservation Advisory Council. Although George Lawrence, chair of the Milan CAC, was present, he said nothing. There was no comment from the Pine Plains CAC (we’re not sure if anyone from that group was present). The hearing was then recessed at the unexpectedly early hour of 5:30. When asked afterward why he hadn’t said anything, Mr. Lawrence responded that he was still studying the issue. We’re very surprised by this. Mr. Lawrence is an environmental engineer and claims to be very familiar with environmental issues. Why would someone with his experience need three months to study the relevant chapters and draw the obvious conclusions, especially when he has four other CAC members to help out? (The environmental issues are discussed mostly in chapters 8 and 9.)

The hearing resumed at 7 p.m. Milan Town Supervisor Dick Barrett, a Republican, welcomed the participants and introduced Chair Bartles. In all, Supervisor spoke for less than a minute—the only words he uttered in public all evening.

Republican Town Supervisor Dick Barrett welcomes the participants to Milan Town Hall at the Durst DEIS hearing on March 6. He spoke for less than a minute, sat down, and said nothing else the entire evening.

At least he and Republican Town Board member Bobbie Egan managed to attend the session held in their own town hall. They did not attend the two earlier sessions in Pine Plains, and they weren’t at the fourth session in Pine Plains on March 6 either. Missing was Republican Town Board member David Byrne, who is apparently away on military duty (he did attend the first two sessions). Democratic Town Board members Diane May and Ross Williams were present, as they have been at all other hearings. Planning Board Chair Al LoBrutto was also present.

The proceedings began with the usual formalities from the Planning Board and then moved on to a statement from Matt Rudikoff of Matthew D. Rudikoff Associates, the planner for Durst. That’s when things got interesting. Mr. Rudikoff launched into a highly inappropriate attack on Milan’s wetlands protection law as a way of justifying the Durst lawsuit against it. The gist of the argument seemed to be that the law is flawed. We’re not lawyers any more than Matt Rudikoff is, but the law isn’t so much flawed as  just very inconvenient for the Dursts. It’s particularly inconvenient after the presentation by Dr. Michael Klemens at the second public hearing on February 29. That’s when he showed what the project should look like if it truly took the environment into account. In fact, Dr. Klemens’s design looks a lot as the project would look if Pine Plains had Milan’s wetlands protection law. In our opinion, the Dursts see the proposed zoning law in Pine Plains as bad  enough. If that law were then backed up, as it should be, by a strong wetlands protection law, the Dursts would really have to scale back the project—and make less money from it.  

The Dursts frequently tell us how environmentally responsible they are, but they’re really just pouring on the greenwash. A firm that was truly green and truly interested in being a good neighbor would respect Milan’s wetlands protection law and work within it, not try to overturn it.

Mr. Rudikoff’s remarks were inappropriate for another reason as well. The purpose of a public hearing is the hearing part—it’s not a question-and-answer session and the hearing is not the place for responses to criticism or statements that aren’t directly relevant to the DEIS. At the hearing on February 29, Mr. Rudikoff used his opening statement to attack the critical letter sent by Dutchess County Department of Planning and Development and to point out that an apology had been received from Roger Akeley, head of the department. (See here for the Akeley letter. Mr. Akeley apologizes for the tone, but he sticks to his guns on the criticism.) That was inappropriate enough, but to use his opening statement on March 6  to make an attack that couldn’t be rebutted in turn was even worse. We were very surprised that Chair Bartles didn’t cut him off, and we were even more surprised that Supervisor Barrett simply sat there. It was left to Milan resident Bill May to rise and interrupt Mr. Rudikoff in mid-rant, pointing out how inappropriate his behavior was, at which point Mr. Rudikoff stopped.

Next up was Dan Stone of The Chazen Companies, the project engineer for the Dursts. He made the same basic PowerPoint presentation extolling the merits of the project that he has made at earlier hearings. We admire his ability to do this with enthusiasm after so many repetitions.

The hearing went on from there with public comment. Lauren Kingman, the former chair of the Milan Planning Board, made a statement based on his long experience with this project. He started by pointing out that the DEIS is more advocacy than the analysis it should be. He then said, “The Project’s preferred development plan for Milan bears little resemblance to any plan that would conform to Milan regulations and would never get sketch endorsement in its current form. The plan calls for many more homes than current regulations would support, much of the identified open space does not qualify as open space under Milan codes, the homes are located in the currently undisturbed areas, separate parcels are improperly aggregated for calculations and layout, and so on. We have met several times with the Project team and they have been intransigent in their position. They have conceded nothing except to note in the DEIS those areas that Milan does not agree with. They propose that new zoning will provide them the density they want and have implied that legal actions will secure the rest.” (You can read his full statement here.)

Democratic Town Board member Ross Williams spoke to five main issues: open space,
green development, population and affordable housing, viability of the project, and
Durst conduct. (Until the Town Board fell into Republican hands, Mr. Williams was one of Milan’s ex officio representatives to the Pine Plains Planning Board. He has been working on the Durst project for several years and is very familiar with it.) He reiterated many of the points others have made about the basic design, pointing out that the project resembles suburban sprawl much more than it does any attempt to be environmentally responsible and fit into a rural landscape. One of his most important points concerned Durst conduct. Mr. Williams stated, “In preparing this DEIS the applicant has shown an insistence to do things only their way. . . . In addition, they fought vigorously to avoid some of the required environmental studies on sensitive species; they objected for months to fully completing the archeological review that had been committed at the beginning of the project.  Only after the Pine Plains Planning Board made it clear that it would stand its ground did the applicant complete the work, which did result in some changes to the plan.  As is evident in the DEIS, they have refused to acknowledge Milan’s zoning constraints on their plans.” (You can see his complete statement here.)

The next speaker was Democratic Town Board member Diane May. She specifically addressed the issue of affordable housing, a thorny problem for all communities in our area. As she pointed out in her statement, “When I read the DEIS and Durst’s promotional materials, I note 90 new jobs will be created with completion of the project, yet there is no real discussion of the need for affordable housing. Where do you think these 90 people will live? The DEIS states: ‘The proposed action will not generate a demand for new affordable housing or lessen the likelihood that affordable housing could be built in the hamlets or rural areas.’ Milan already has a limited stock of affordable housing; to add more residents and to dismiss their housing requirements is unacceptable.” She also said, “The DEIS contemplates affordable housing as Alternative 8, but dismisses the issue because ‘affordable housing would not blend well into the proposed vacation and second home recreation community.’  Please note affordable housing is NOT subsidized housing--it is where our workforce and volunteers live and it does blend in if you actually provide for its inclusion.”  (You can see her complete statement here.)

The Durst attitude toward affordable housing and the workers who would live in it seems to be that the uber-affluent people in their golf resort community shouldn’t have to look at or even think about the lowly serfs who maintain it. And they certainly shouldn’t have to do anything to help provide someplace decent where they can live on their minimum wages. In fact, according to Durst, these people won’t generate any need for affordable housing at all—they’ll all just magically appear when it’s time to start work and disappear again at the end of their shifts.

As the public hearing continued, we waited for Republican Town Supervisor Barrett and Republican Town Board member Bobbie Egan to say something—anything—about the project. They simply sat there and didn’t say a word. Their silence was an insult to the citizens of Milan. This project will have huge impacts on our rural community, our taxes, our emergency services, and our quality of life. At a public hearing on a major issue in their own Town Hall, these two elected representatives couldn’t manage to comment at all. Could it be that Dick Barrett and Bobbie Egan, both licensed real estate agents, are more concerned about their future business dealings with Durst than they are about the people they claim to represent? Given that other Town Board members have been outspoken in their objections to the project, it’s hard to draw any other conclusion.

After additional comment from some other members of the audience, the hearing was concluded at around 9 p.m.

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