At the New Windsor Town Board Meeting on September 3 the Board unanimously voted to pass a law that will permit dense senior housing to be built on watershed lands of Browns Pond, a City of Newburgh reservoir. Town Supervisor George Green said that, in accordance with the master plan, the area would be “subject to stringent watershed regulations,” but that was not enough for several citizens who spoke during the public forum against having the Browns Pond watershed included in the densely zoned area at all.
Public forum, with City of Newburgh residents and a New Windsor resident speaking out:
Motions passed regarding the overlay zoning (including Browns Pond area):
In addition to the dense senior housing zoning law that was passed, the Board adopted a motion on water conservation, as was also reported by the Times-Herald Record. According to the Record,
The resolution didn’t spell out what that means, but Supervisor George Green says it means things like requiring residential development builders to dig a well to supply things like a lawn sprinkling system. Green says the town often exceeds its daily limit on the water it takes from New York City’s Catskill Aqueduct. When that happens, any water above the limit costs the town about three times the normal rate, Green estimates — and the town has no legal or practical way to pass that cost along to customers.
It is unfortunate that given New Windsor’s apparent need for additional water sources they voted to put watershed lands around Browns Pond in the dense housing zone. Browns Pond is a City of Newburgh reservoir and, given the water agreement between the two municipalities, will be a New Windsor reservoir as well.
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