Location. Location. What Was That Third Thing?
Well, people are either less smart than we figured down in Sullivan County, or their government’s worse than we guessed. Either way, they’re moving forward toward 5 casinos and God knows what kind of future for their children. We’d propose building a humongous security fence across Ulster County’s southern border but we doubt it would help. Maybe one day some natural disaster will close 209 permanently outside Ellenville, and the rest of our county will remain fairly recognizable. Short of that, our choices are basically do something or do nothing. But as for actually trying to protect ourselves, we doubt our current county legislature is so inclined. Blood brothers and legal partners with the mighty Modocs of Oklahoma - both of them and their attorneys - it’s Chamber of Commerce President Ward Todd’s signature at the bottom of that treaty, from back in 2001 when he held current Chairman Gerentine’s job and neither could remember who attended any of the pow-wow’s where they negotiated it. The kicker is that our county’s now obliged to sue any of its towns that tries to stop a casino from being built in it. Way to go, county government! So while we wish it were further away, we guess Monticello’s as good a place as any to turn into an adult entertainment center. It’s half the drive time Atlantic City is for Donald Trump (like he’d actually drive it) and the locals it seems there, are either dumb as posts or docile as sheep. Good location, huh?
One more exit up the Thruway puts you in Ulster County; most of us know that spot around mile 70 where the real Catskills come into breathtaking view. Looks pristine, right? and most of it is. But here’s some news you may have missed from 2002: we’re now urban, not rural under federal designation, and the county even has its own Metropolitan Planning Organization. So while we can think of our neck of the woods any way we want, it is pretty much official. “Country” or not we’re a metropolitan area. And while we’re not suburbia, we are most definitely a bedroom community to the larger New York metropolitan area. If you’ve any doubt about that just look at today’s real estate prices and ask yourself who’s buying those bedrooms. Better yet, ask a realtor. Still unsure? How about this: Traffic volume in Ulster County has tripled in the past 20 years, and is right on track to triple again in the next 20, and that’s without any casinos nearby and without anything new and big getting built. And does anyone think nothing big’s getting built?
In Hurley there’s “Hidden Forest” on the drawing boards, a 652-home gated development representing a 25% increase in that town’s people and housing units. Think about that. 25 percent growth of a whole town on just 400 acres. Well sure the applicant’s got an Ulster County mailing address and a deed that was probably signed by a Dutch governor. But this is a project of US Homes, a $10.5 billion New Jersey company that built 37,000 new houses last year alone. So is this a “local” project? You tell us. Looks like they just ran out of space in Jersey and Rockland and Orange County and now we’re next.
So if Hurley can grow 25% in one project, what about Olive now that holding raw land has gotten pricier? What about Shandaken? There’s a town with 1,300 bedrooms worth of lodging proposed, 3,000 new people a day in a town of 3,300. And elsewhere in the region? 2,600 new housing units proposed for the Kingston waterfront, and everyone says great. That’s 6 or 7,000 new people in a city of 23,000. Well OK. It’s not in the watershed and there’s an interstate highway nearby. But hold on, how about just over the notch, where Hunter Mountain’s Orville Slutsky’s got 400-plus residential units in the talking stage, just south of the junction of 214 and 23A. Think that’ll take Hunter’s planning board more than a couple meetings? No problems there.
And this is exactly how it happens. Don’t like the word “sprawl”? Pick one with a positive ring like “development,” it’s the same thing. But anyone who thinks either one doesn’t mean higher taxes should immediately call their nearest relative in suburbia and ask what they’re paying. Every new project comes in with the same song and dance, “We’re increasing the tax base, we’re self-contained, and the roads can handle it.” And the bigger the projects are and the smaller the town, the more taxes go up and the faster long-time residents are forced out.
So what does it mean to acknowledge that we’re bedroom communities and part of a growing metropolitan area? We think what it means is that the business of Ulster County is exactly the same as every other metropolitan county. It means that what makes our economy work is people living here, full or part-time, working, either here or somewhere else, and paying their taxes and supporting every business and everything else that goes on. That’s our future, and if we don’t make planning for it our priority, we’re all going to be paying for a ride on someone else’s gravy train with stops at Casinotown, Resortville, and Walled Enclosureburg.
In Shandaken, there’s a new Comp Plan in progress that appears to be factoring in, at best, little of this. But the full draft is still a committee secret, so we’ll have to wait and see. Olive seems to have put everything meaningful to managing its future on hold, pending an alternate resolution to the large parcel issue. There’s a lot of uncertainty and it’s certainly justified.
Some folks say the real future’s tourism and for proof look backwards. What we see there is 2 generations of a second-home based economy, 3 generations with passenger trains and boardinghouses, and before that, 4 generations of tanbark and bluestone extraction. We think it’s the last 40 years that are relevant to helping plan for the next 5 or 10.