Kinderhook Neighbors for Good Growth is deeply concerned about the many impacts that Kinderhook would suffer from the proposed Widewaters strip mall with Hannaford’s market as their anchor tenant. Both Widewaters and Hannaford have a serious responsibility to this community to act upon the concerns of our neighbors that come here tonight. Many came here, out of fear and concern for their families and for this community.

The SDEIS tells us that Hannaford plans to use a generator to produce electricity, not just in blackouts, but also in peak usage hours all year. Generators are high noise polluters. We see no plans for mitigation of this problem.

KNGG is concerned that Widewaters and Hannaford will do all in its power not to conform to our zoning code regarding architectural standards. They have already filed an application with the Zoning Board of Appeals for approval to avoid a Kinderhook design regulation. A really good potential neighbor would do all possible to make the community happy and not ask for variances, but conform to the code. This is our home! Hannaford and Widewaters are welcome here. But, they must conform to our code as it is intended.

Kinderhook is a unique town with its historic villages, hamlet and farmland. If Widewaters and Hannaford get their way, they’ll put in oversized BIG BOX structures creating a strip mall that has no relationship to this town. This strip mall, as now designed, is no more than a boiler plate plan taken from a BIG BOX template. In the simulation in the SDEIS, it looks like a colony of Howard Johnson’s, complete with the orange roofs.

The parking lot light poles tower to the unnecessary height of 40 feet and hold light fixtures that measure five feet in diameter. Some of the poles carry as many as four fixtures. We have concerns that the height will not only look out of place but the light pollution will spill into surrounding areas.

In order to make this development possible at this dangerous high traffic intersection; the DOT is now telling Widewaters that only by putting in a ROUNDABOUT, could it be feasible.

There will be no traffic signals! All traffic is expected to merge into the roundabout.

How are pedestrians, including students who are attracted to McDonalds’s, Stewart’s and the amenities of the mall, expected to dodge traffic safely?

How will they get across this busy intersection safely on foot from the school without traffic signals?

How will bicycles navigate a one-lane roundabout safely? And where happens to the bicyclist when the 16 wheelers and busses must use the shoulder because the facility is not wide enough?

How will busses, 16 wheelers and flatbeds carrying houses navigate it at all?

How will emergency vehicles get through?

Our own Planning Board Member, Charles Shattenkirk, a retired civil engineer, has expressed that the roundabout plan is deficient in that:

(1.) The deceleration lanes are insufficient and

(2.) the entrances from US9 and New York 9H are almost immediately adjacent

and therefore in violation of federal roundabout design guidelines.

And so, among other things, this plan gives us unsafe entrances to the roundabout.

Are we, the residents of Kinderhook, expected to get stuck with this "EXPERIMENTAL" five leg, one lane ROUNDABOUT?

It troubles me that Widewaters has not submitted traffic studies for the early morning rush hour when school busses would be merging into heavy traffic and are returning with students. That’s when the commuters are rushing off to work, stopping briefly at McDonald’s and/or Stewart’s before continuing to their destination.

It is outrageous that they should show us the early evening studies, taken when the school busses are already back at the school from their afternoon runs and not show us the morning ones.

What this all boils down to is commercialism versus the safety of our children, of our seniors, of all residents and of those just passing through.

If Hannaford and Widewaters truly want to be good neighbors, they need to be sensitive to our architectural heritage, downsize this project and move it to a more suitable and safer location.

Allen Schaefer, President

Kinderhook Neighbors for Good Growth