Mathes Says County Planner

Stalls Pony Farm Expansion

By JIM KEVLIN • for www.allotsego.com

ONEONTA – The county’s “single point of contact” for economic development, Sandy Mathes, told a Citizen Voices public meeting this morning that, given interference by the county Planning Department, he is considering abandoning development of the final 25 acres in the Pony Farm Commerce Park.

The county Planning Department director, Karen Sullivan, has asked the state DOT to review the Route 205 corridor from I-88 north, an unnecessary step that will embroil local ec-dev plans in perhaps years of unnecessary red tape, Mathes told a gathering of 50 businesspeople in the Carriage House on Southside Drive.

“She absolutely overstepped her bounds,” he said of the planning director.

Later this month, the Town of Oneonta Planning Board has to decide whether to support Sullivan’s recommendation, or whether to proceed with its SEQRA review responsibilities without asking for state DOT involvement.

Mathes said the board has the authority to move forward on its own.  The DOT has neglected the stretch for decades, and it is the state’s responsibility, not the town’s to fix it at town expense, he said.

If DOT oversight becomes an obstacle, the county Industrial Development Agency – Mathes is president – will simply move on to another site.  Separately, it has already exercised an option on 130 acres outside Richfield Springs for a commerce park that will seek to benefit from nanotechnology ferment in the Mohawk Valley.

Not only would DOT involvement hinder IDA plans, it would also slow the Bettiol family’s plans for a hotel  and commercial development across from the former National Soccer Hall of Fame.

Sought out while attending the county Board of Representatives meeting this morning, Sullivan said the town Planning Board, as it is required to do, referred the IDA plans to her, and she proceeded routinely.

Joe Camarata, town Planning Board chair, said today he believes traffic impacts are part of SEQRA, the state Environmental Quality Review Act.  The state requires SEQRA reviews for any local permitting action from municipalities on up.

But he said he anticipates a meeting of the mind with Mathes.  “We definitely need jobs in the area,” said Camarata.

Mathes spoke on the topic, “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” of economic development.  The imbroglio over Pony Farm fell under “The Ugly.”

After the meeting, Town Supervisor Bob Wood, who attended, said IDA plans for the remaining Pony Farm acreage include a 400-space parking lot, which could accommodate a 1,200-employee plant over three shifts, and that might create traffic snarls at where the commerce park driveway connects with the I-88 intersection.

He said a 50-100 job operation might be more easily accommodated.

When Route 23 was being developed through Southside, he said the town Planning Board routinely decided state review was unnecessary, and that led to some of the traffic issues there today.