Planning Board Meeting 6pm tonight at Town Hall 1465 Orange Turnpike Monroe.

I'm writing today because a new zoning precedent is about to be set in Monroe for the 280 acres of forested hilltop known as the Rye Hill Corridor. There is a 300-unit apartment complex approximately 3 football fields wide and 191-town homes being workshopped in Planning at Town Hall at 6pm tonight. We who fought the Dinosaur Park have started a community action group dedicated to fighting this development. Today, we have 200 members of Preserve Monroe. Please join us or connect with us by emailing PreserveMonroeNY@gmail.com today. We are fighting abuses of a new zoning being applied to this land—called Conservation Cluster Zoning. It is an overlay that can be placed anywhere 0.5 miles outside of village limits on parcels that are 5 acres or larger. It is a type of zoning premised on the idea of conservation-- on preservation in perpetuity of 65% of the proposed development site. But it is being misused. If you've been following the recent news of this development, the concept of donating large swaths of land in exchange for a large housing development might sound all too familiar. Since we last spoke about the proposed Dinosaur Theme Park, residents have uncovered the original deed to the property. The developer of Mansion Ridge, Great Expectations LLC, agreed to donate the 131-acre parcel to the Town of Monroe in accordance with what was the standard practice for preservation at that time. The publicized intent of the donation was to mitigate the environmental impact of building a large housing development in Monroe and the publicity lessened the public outcry against the incoming development.

The deed states, "said lands shall be used for passive recreation only in a manner determined, from time to time, by the Town Board of Monroe." It's a small line, but it packs a punch. This language has specific legal definitions. Passive recreation is a category of land use that is controlled by law: it is limited to minimal impact activities such as wildlife observation, walking, biking, and canoeing. Its intent is to ensure the least disturbance on the surrounding lands, ecosystem, and in this case-- our freshwater wetlands. Unfortunately, our Town Board felt that the following clause "in a manner determined from time to time by the Town Board of Monroe" was their opportunity to invite Neil Gold's Dinosaur Theme park and its projected 300,000 annual visitors. Gold's reputation precedes him, as he is infamous for "creative" exploitation of loopholes in zoning. Monroe is no stranger to these "creative" workarounds and its citizens have voted many Novembers with the hopes that their ballots cast may end these less than reputable dealings. The Town Board has set a precedent with their vote to lease the 131 acres to Neil Gold back in April. We fought it off and we have jumped into the ring again to prevent high powered developers and attorneys like Jeffrey Buss, who represents the “Rye Hill Preserve” from raising building heights to 53 feet and petitioning to avoid environmental impact studies on a major development. How can we trust the Town Board to carry out future conservation of these donated lands? Please stand with us again on this. This decision will set a precedent for the coming decades in Monroe. Show tonight at Town Hall if you can, wear green to represent our community action group and our beautiful landscape we wish to preserve for real.