Town officials are waiting for the developer of the proposed Wal-Mart Supercenter to complete a draft environmental impact statement before referring the project to the Planning Board.
The CDRC, an advisory group to the Planning Board, wants an additional review of the potential environmental fallout, but the developer has not yet filed the information with the town. “We told them to respond to the comments,” First Deputy Town Attorney Alan Berman said of concerns expressed by the committee, “and put it in final form, so it can be reviewed one last time by the CDRC.”
Traffic has been a key concern of the committee, other issues have included the visual impact of the store, landscaping and the drainage of storm water.
William Johnson of Spring Valley voiced skepticism that the review would make much of a difference.
“They’re going to do what they want to do anyway,” “The traffic is horrendous already,” he said, gesturing toward Route 59. “It’s not going to make it any better. It’s only going to make it worse.”
It is also a concern that side streets would be blocked by lines of Route 59 traffic. The developers have proposed relief with 200- and 300-foot-long turn lanes, and coordinating traffic signals.
Richard Lipsky, spokesman for the Neighborhood Retail Alliance, yesterday said its traffic studies predict 3 million car trips annually to a Monsey Wal-Mart. Lipsky, whose group has opposed Wal-Mart plans in New York City, said the store would adversely affect Spring Valley and Monsey merchants.
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7 Responses
if it goes through, it will be the end of st. lawrences career. all the heads of yeshivas and rabbis have sent him a letter telling him this. lets see if he values his job
St Lawrence is now more powerful than any Yeshiva or Rabbi cares to imagine. It is Viznitz (Kaser) and New Square who pull the strings. The proposed WalMart is just bad. What he will propose is to buy another 5 acres of park land somewhere in Sloatsburg to cover the environmental impact. He doesnt care about the traffic or the impact it will have on Jewish owned businesses, just about his next election. Today in the Journal News someone questioned why he has not responded to the Pomona Tartikov debacle. The answer is, He doesnt care. He is to powerful to worry about these little non events in his life. In 10 years ( I hope it takes that long) we will realize that he was single handedly responsible for the destruction of the once beautiful county of Rockland.
This is not a Jewish issue per say its a typical zoning/land use issue that in this scenario happens to affect Yidden.
If Walmart comes to Monsey – we will NOT save money, we probably will be spending more. Unless you think you will save money by wasting your time in the car in traffic, but I still disagree with this idea, because if you’re stuck in traffic you work less and the car uses gas all the time….
STOP WALMART from coming!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
im not from monsey, but im pretty sure the amount of money you will be saving on items that can be purchased there for ultra cheap will help make up for the few cents per day you are “losing” on gas sitting in traffic for all of ten minutes.
House 77 what you seem to missing is that there is already a Walmart on the same road 10 minutes in the other direction.
Ephraim, when the talk began of opening the new larger super-walmart, the discussion included closing the smaller tallman store.
I live in Monsey and as far as I am concerned – let them build. I will continue to frequent the Heimish businesses and shop only at walmart for those items that are either significantly cheaper, or not available in the Heimish stores.
1 more point re: traffic: if people think that the traffic is going to get worse because it is right next to pathmark, I don’t think that. I would not be surprised if pathmark ends up abandoning the Monsey store – after all there is another pathmark 10 minutes in the other direction in nanuet.