Details About CUPON Rally and Ramapo Planning Board Meeting
(Please note date change from 3/8/16 to 3/16/16. Planning Board Rescheduled)
Date: Rescheduled to March 16th, 2016
Time: 7:15 pm
Place: Town Hall parking lot, 237 Route 59, Suffern NY (we will convene inside if inclement weather dictates)
Following the demonstration all of us will attend the Planning Board meeting for the re-vote at 8:00pm.
To our concerned citizens,
On Tuesday February 16th, 2016 a Ramapo Planning Board meeting was held to vote on renewing expired development approvals. A project not listed on their website but was added to the agenda at the last minute is one we have been opposing, named Bluefield Extension. This project was initially approved on January 30th, 2014. The approval is only good for 1 year so they are back with a request to renew it. We had discovered a problem with the initial approval, where the Planning and Zoning Boards voted to override a required county document (GML) that opposed the project, but the county never issued a GML!
As this project came up for a vote, the developer / owner’s lawyer argued against allowing public comments. I was able to object to the Board’s authority to vote on a re-approval because the initial approval was faulty. I asked them to require the builder/owner to start the entire application process over. A quorum had been declared by the Town attorney although there were only 5 of the 7 Planning Board members present. 1 of the Board members questioned the legality of the initial vote, and was the only vote against it, after a 4 to 1 vote was taken. The chairperson declared the motion passed and the renewal was granted. The Town lawyer informed the chairperson a unanimous vote was required because the initial vote was unanimous, therefore the request for approval was not unanimous so it is denied. After a discussion, the chairperson called for another vote to void the first vote, and reschedule the vote when the full Board will be available on March 8th. I objected to this and argued that a quorum is present and the vote is valid, and that the chairman is calling for a revote because the vote didn’t achieve his objective. They voted to recent the first vote anyway.
As you can see this is pure hypocrisy. The Ramapo Town government is not acting in the best interest of all its citizens. When the need to constantly monitor a governing body for possible illegal, improper, and bias actions, we as citizens have no choice but to respond. To show our dissatisfaction with the actions taken in this situation, and to pressure the Board to allow the disapproval vote to stand, we are calling all citizens to join us in a demonstration. We must impress upon this Board and Town that we will not allow this behavior to go unchallenged by all possible means.
The information for the demonstration is as follows:
Date: March 8th, 2016
Time: 7:15 pm
Place: Town Hall parking lot, 237 Route 59, Suffern NY (we will convene inside if inclement weather dictates)
Following the demonstration all of us will attend the Planning Board meeting for the re-vote at 8:00pm.
Why is this important? There are over 12 large scale projects on the books or being planned in Ramapo, and this does not include the isolated ‘spot down zoning’ projects. 5 of these major projects are already being built or are in the Town’s approval processes. Given the current situation, when all of the projects are built, there will be more that 2000 new residence in Ramapo with over 20,000 new residents occupying these homes, which the general public cannot buy or rent. Our water, roads, sewers, and social services infrastructures will be overburdened, and will force large tax increases.
Taking the time to participate in this demonstration and lending your support of others is an imposition on the busy lives of most of us, but what are the alternatives? If we had organized against overdevelopment 10 years ago we may have been able to prevent some of this now. We must get the message across to this Town that we will not allow the urbanization of our villages and neighborhoods.
Please plan on participating in this demonstration.
