SARATOGA — Expecting it will soon get final approval, residents who have fought a proposed development above Saratoga Lake for eight years made a final attempt to stop the Cedar Bluff 31-home subdivision from moving forward.
On Wednesday night at a Planning Board public hearing, seven residents made one last appeal to the board about the construction and their concerns. The 11th-hour effort urged the Planning Board to reconsider the effects on increased traffic and noise, the depletion of the water table and the loss of trees on steep slopes that they say will cause the ridge on which the houses will be built to erode.
The public hearing is in advance of the Planning Board granting final approval. It’s unclear however, when that vote will happen.
Tossing down a 50-pound bag of soil Wednesday at the podium , Tom Yannios told the board in 10 years developer John Witt’s plan will cause 1,680 pounds of soil to erode per acre, per year from the steep slopes above the lake. He said his erosion mathematics have been confirmed by the state Department of Agriculture and Cornell Cooperative Extension. Yannios also said that in 20 years, only a quarter of the trees on the slopes will remain, causing the soil and storm water to tumble down into backyards and the lake below.
“According to your plan’s calculations … after 20 years, 24 percent of the protective tree canopy will remain,” Yannios said. “That is your plan. That is supposed to constitute a fulfillment of the zoning requirement where there is no disturbance. … That constitutes disturbance in my book.”
Planning Board Chair Ian Murray was unmoved, telling Yannios, “You can certainly take it up with the courts.”
Murray also said the cutting of trees does not constitute disturbance because “there is no activity there.”
“That’s a bogus argument,”…
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