Local developers have planned a major residential project for the currently empty property on the corner of Jackson and Main Street (the site of the former Mid-Hudson Medical building).

This is a 7-building, 3.5 story (38’ 6” high) complex of 56 apartments, storage buildings and offices, together with a 105-unit parking lot.

The high-density development will impact both Town and Village residents; it is designed to direct all incoming and outgoing apartment complex traffic onto Weston and Cary Avenues, which will increase traffic dramatically on these streets and on the adjoining Main and Jackson Streets. It will also increase the difficulty of emergency vehicles to traverse the neighborhood when they are needed. Traffic attempting to avoid the intersection of Jackson and Main will increasingly ignore the one-way traffic signs and cut through these narrow roads; ultimately, they will work their way further into this residential neighborhood via Wood, Lyster and Florence  

Making matters worse, forty (40) mature trees on the property will be cut down, leaving surrounding homes exposed to viewing from the apartments, and traffic noise which is now buffered by those trees.  They propose to leave four (4) trees and to replant a few small trees, which will reach a maximum estimated height of only 20 feet. 

They are also proposing an arborvitae hedge and a cedar fence around the home on Cary Ave for noise mitigation, but viewing sight lines will remain the same, resulting in a loss of privacy for all the homes in the area. 

The developer is also requesting a reduction in the buffer margin from 20’ (the village’s current code requirement) to 10’ between the southern and eastern property lines for 39 Cary Avenue and the Jackson and Main Project, bringing the edge of the project exceedingly close to the house that is adjacent to the property on Cary. 

 The increased traffic issues that will be contributed by this development are significant.

  
The existing traffic patterns already exceed the available capacity and run at a Traffic Level graded “F”; the worst possible designation.  The firm they personally hired to review  stated that the additional cars/traffic generated by this development will have an insignificant increase is preposterous on its face. The available traffic capacity ALREADY EXCEEDS what the road can bear.  You must know that the traffic generated by an additional 105 apartment dwellers will make traffic around this area even more congested and unbearable.  This is  not possible and a comprehensive traffic study will surely show otherwise.

This project is out of scale with the Village of Fishkill’s density, and imposes an intolerable burden of additional traffic and safety concerns for both Town and Village residents.  
 
We are asking for a comprehensive traffic study be conducted by the County (and not by the developer) that will accurately reflect the reality in which Town and Village residents live, work, shop and attempt to commute.

The traffic in Fishkill must be addressed responsibly, rather than continuing to add to the crisis.