Aesthetics

My name is Robert Berlind, and I live with my wife Mary Lucier on New Turnpike Road in a house that belonged to Adam Sauer, whose farm comprised several hundred acres including the proposed development site. We feel grateful to live in this 1910 farmhouse with its unspoiled surroundings. Most of our land is still used for agricultural purposes. The beauty of the fields, woodlands and streams and the peaceful quality of life is what brought us here. Because we are artists and find the rural character of the area important to our work, we are especially concerned with preserving it.

Most of New Turnpike Rd. is lined with forest, and many of the houses are set back from the road in the woods. There are unspoiled meadows, old stone walls and, along the road, many scenic views of distant hills. (One of these would be destroyed by the proposed development.) The road, end to end, is a restful, quiet place where troops of turkeys, deer, and the occasional black bear roam through the woods and across yards. In summer the songs of tree frogs, birds, and crickets are often the only sounds punctuating the deep quiet. Winter nights are dark, silent, and full of stars. All of this would be lost forever by the incursion of a new community with dozens of new houses clustered at its midpoint near Cross Road.

It is hard to imagine a less appropriate setting for a cluster of suburban style houses, whether seasonal or year-round. The inevitable increase in traffic caused by such an influx would not only overtax our roads, particularly as its residents would have to go far afield to shop, it would change the character of life throughout the immediate area. There is little automobile traffic because New Turnpike Rd., much of it unpaved, is not a pass-through thoroughfare to goods, services, or entertainment. The traffic and noise during the building phase of the proposed project would be ruinous to life in the immediate vicinity. The coming and going of so many new residents afterward would make it a different road entirely. Once the building project is underway, the quiet will end for anyone within earshot. Whether the building is done in stages or all at once, there will for a period of years be trucks and heavy equipment rolling to and from the site along the skinny, inadequate roads. Wells will be drilled; septic systems, drainage courses, and foundations will be constructed. The sounds of concrete mixers, pile drivers, hammers, powertools and the like will drown out the ambient natural sounds and chase away the wildlife.

The immediate damage, of course, would be to the site itself and to those neighbors with contiguous property. The argument that a cluster of houses on small plots leaves a larger area untouched, thus keeping the area's beauty in tact, is disingenuous: what will be visible from the road will be a suburban cluster that in fact blocks the view of the preserved land.

The far more significant damage will be in the precedent established. Can anyone think that this first attempt by a developer to create a beachhead in Cochecton will, if it succeeds, be the last? There are other large tracts of former farmland for sale that will quickly be targeted for exploitation. How will the Planning Board resist future assaults on the character of our area if permission is granted for this conspicuously inappropriate one to go forward? We are arguing not merely for the esthetic pleasure and sustenance we draw from living here. We are arguing for the future of the area, the town and the county.

The economics of the situation make attempts to develop land inevitable. We would be remiss not to object to this first serious assault on the rural character of the town. If we fail to fulfill our obligations to the irreplaceable countryside and to those who will come after us, a threshold will be crossed, and we will inevitably come to resemble Orange, Rockland, and Nassau Counties. There will be no turning back once precedent has been set. We'll be just another shopping mall culture lining the pockets of people with no commitment to the region and who see dollar signs where we see the harmony and beauty of rural life.