He also told representatives for Mohonk Preserve he was concerned about the ecological and habitat impacts that restoring Lenape Lane’s pin oak allee and the Gatehouse itself would have.
On the flip side, some people like Rich Gottlieb — the owner of Rock & Snow climbing store in New Paltz — see a lot of promise in the expansive project.
“I’m very inspired by this,” Gottlieb said. “This could give access to a lot of the college students who have no automobiles. It’s something closer that they can walk to or bike to.”
Laura Walls, the public info meeting’s moderator, reminded the audience that Mohonk Preserve has yet to go before the Town of New Paltz Planning Board with the proposal. It’s currently a concept plan. Planning Board members will debate the merits of the project next year and a public hearing will likely be held.
A county perspective
Chris White, the deputy director of planning for Ulster County, said he liked what he saw from Mohonk’s proposal.
“The Planning Department strongly supports the conceptual plan,” White explained. Ulster County had some concerns that cars might queue up on 299 at the new entrance. When they had questions, though, White said that Mohonk Preserve answered them.
“Very frankly, the only thing we saw from Mohonk was direct responsiveness,” he said. “I have to question who is a better steward of some of our most important resources than Mohonk Preserve. They’ve set the gold standard for that.”
Some of the people who attended the meeting came because they were upset about OSI’s treatment of the Brook Farm CSA. White encouraged skeptics to think about how someone other than the Smiley family — the owners of Mohonk Mountain House — would have misused Mohonk foothills land.
“Let’s talk about what could have happened with this. I mean, if the Smiley family had sold these lands to someone else, we could now be fighting subdivisions,” he said. “This is a very respectful plan for this landscape.”
The foothills and beyond
Mohonk Preserve is purchasing 534 acres of land in the Mohonk foothills, including the Testimonial Gatehouse, Kleinekill Farm and Humpo Marsh. Right now, the land belongs to the Open Space Institute. Previously, it belonged to Mohonk Mountain House.
They’ve also got eyes on smaller parcels of land in Gardiner and Rosendale for purchase. Recently, the Preserve began fundraising to get the $2.2 million needed to buy all the 534 acres plus the 400-acre Rock Hill Ridge, the 70-acre Gardiner Talus and 80 acres in Rosendale.
Capital improvements in the works for the Gatehouse project aren’t included in the $2.2 million needed for land. According to Mohonk Preserve executive director Glenn Hoagland, if eventually approved, the Gatehouse and Lenape Lane restoration could cost $1.5 million to $2 million extra.
Mohonk also plans to raise $5.5 million in the next five years and they’d like to raise $12 million by 2023 for additional projects. The larger capital project — outside of the work envisioned for the Mohonk Foothills — includes a restoration of eight miles of carriage roads and a revamped Visitor Center.
What’s next?
So what’s next for Mohonk Foothills and the Testimonial Gatehouse? That’d be review, according to Hoagland.
“It will be a site plan application we’ll be bringing before the Town of New Paltz Planning Board — sometime in the winter of 2014. So that will launch the formal review process,” he said. “This meeting last Thursday was just an informal, voluntary community engagement meeting on our part.
“It was really just to continue to get formative input from some key folks in the community who have an interest and concern about our plans.”
Recently, Hudson River Valley Greenway awarded the Town of New Paltz an $8,500 grant to create nearly a mile-long bicycle-pedestrian path across the “Flats” near the Wallkill View Farm Market.
Although Mohonk Preserve is hopeful as for what that means to connectivity eventually, right now it doesn’t have a connection to their project.
“It’s not a connection all the way to the Ridge,” Hoagland said. “It won’t connect to the Gatehouse plan until such future time where it’s possible to link that trail. So, right now, it’s essentially a trail out to Wallkill View Farms across the beautiful agricultural Flats.”
We need a full environmental impact study and statement for all the component proposals of thr mohonk land assest management plan regarding the 857 acres of the foothills, beginning with the subdivision of the site and the proposals for the imminent testimonial gateway project itself.
I am against these proposed changes…traffic will be a detrimental to the area.