For more than a month, the Lloyd Town Board has sat on a proposed law that would prohibit private sewer plants from being built in town. A number of key town officials, including Supervisor Dave Plavchak, Building Department Director Dave Barton, Planning Board Chairman Scott McCarthy and Councilman Joe Mazzetti have all voiced their opposition, because if a plant fails in the future with no owner/developer in sight, the town will be forced by the county or the state to take it over, at taxpayer’s expense, to ensure that this critical service is maintained for the residents the plant serves.
With the proposed Falcon Ridge residential project pushing for a private sewer plant, the Town Board could have protected the town right up front by prohibiting these kinds of plants, but instead, by a recent vote of 4-1, they approved a different resolution that will have this developer spending a lot of time and money responding to environmental impacts surrounding his project. Quite rightly, councilman Mazzetti pointed out that once this developer finishes dealing with these questions, he will be back before the Town Board to again petition for a private sewer plant. Should the board then vote to prohibit these plants, in all likelihood he will sue the town. At that point the developer may have a far stronger case for a plant, and face an incredulous judge asking the town why they forced such an environmental review, only to turn around a year later and say no to these kinds of sewer plants.
Mazzetti has long been critical of the legal advice provided by the town’s land use attorney, especially for his mantra that the Town Board can simply say “no” to a developer if they feel a project is not appropriate for a particular site or, if they wish, have a developer make significant modifications. If the Town Board believes they really have this power, as their attorney insists they do, then the board will come to realize, far too late, just how seriously they have been mislead.
Mazzetti says the town needs a new attorney who will work entirely on the town’s behalf, to provide accurate and factual answers to their land use questions. That change is long overdue.
The Town Board should immediately pass their on-hold resolution to prohibit private sewer plants. It is unfair to string this or any developer along and it is a gross dereliction by the town to kick this can down the road as they have done. The time to correct this is now and not a year from now, when a lawsuit will surely follow, one we expect the town will lose. Let the Falcon Ridge developer figure out how to make his sewer issues work by either paying for a sewer line down Route 9W, as he initially proposed, or by the town requiring him to make each residential lot large enough to accommodate wells and septic systems. Town officials should stop worrying whether developers are making a profit and instead be committed to what is in the best interests of the town’s residents. The board should not leave the town open to a lawsuit because of their incredibly foolish wait and see posture.
That is a scenario ripe for failure and will be an expensive one to litigate at that.