Next Step For Stephentown Motocross

by David Flint
The Stephentown Zoning Board will hold a public hearing next month regarding whether to grant a use variance for a motocross track in the southern edge of town. Howard Commander’s engineer, Pat Prendergast, reported at the Board meeting on December 1 that the State Historic Preservation Office is satisfied with his solution to protecting an area where an arrowhead and indications of an ancient campfire site were found. That area, he said, would be set aside and not used for anything other than parking. Given no more objections from the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), Prendergast deemed their application to be now complete. Lewis Oliver, attorney for opposing neighbors in the vicinity of Webster Hill, Tayer and Saddleback Ridge Roads, did not agree, but the Board decided, with the advice of their engineering consultant from Clough Harbour, Mike Bianchino, that there is certainly sufficient information to hold a public hearing, so they scheduled one to precede the next Board meeting on January 5.
The Board’s attorney, Craig Crist of Dreyer Boyajian LLP, pointed out that the focus of this hearing will be on any possible environmental impacts. The next step will be for the Board to go through Part 2 of the Environmental Assessment Form to determine if there are any impacts and, if so, to what extent and whether they can be mitigated by changing the project. At that point they will have a complete application to send to the Planning Board for their review, and the Zoning Board can then hold a public hearing required by local code prior to ruling on granting a use variance.
Oliver objected saying that the location of the track on the planning map had been moved again, that the access road and a proposed drainage swale within 25 feet of a neighbor’s property require an area variance that has not been applied for, that a new wetlands map proposed by DEC needs to be considered and that the noise study that was done was not adequate.
Prendergast responded that he had not moved the track but only shortened it a bit to allow more room between it and the neighboring property. The access road, he said, was a pre-existing dirt road that shows on a 2007 Google map and the proposed swale is 50 to 60 feet away from the corner of the neighboring property. Regarding the proposed new wetlands map, he said that Nancy Heaslip at DEC was just trying to include the wetlands that he himself had flagged for her. The project, he insisted, does not infringe on any wetlands. As for the noise study, Prendergast said that a DVD video was made and could be shown to the Board at the next meeting.
Regarding the access road, a neighbor contended that although there had been for years a tractor roadway alongside her property, a new one was built last year that has a different entrance and a new track. Therefore she believed it should be considered a new roadway and not pre-existing. Commander’s lawyer, Francis Roche, said that in any case the Stephentown Land Use Regulations on setbacks make an exception for “necessary driveways.” Whether a commercial use with, as Oliver put it, some 300 vehicles in and out in a two hour period weekends and Tuesdays, constitutes a “necessary driveway” will have to be determined. Code Enforcement Officer Dean Herrick, when asked his opinion, said that roadways and driveways have traditionally not been required to have a special permit. The State, he said, does require that the owner be able to maintain them without infringing on a neighbor.