KINDERHOOK--The Widewaters Group says its recent poll shows town residents support its proposed Hannaford Brothers market project by a two-to-one margin.        The telephone poll, conducted April 14 and 15, asked people in Kinderhook, Niverville, and Valatie if they supported the food store planned for the intersection of Routes 9, 9H and State Farm Road here.        Of the 348 people polled who said they were aware of the proposal, 57% approved, says Widewaters Project Manager Brian Long, who issued a press release on the poll April 28.        Only 28% opposed the project, he says, while the remaining 15% were undecided.        But Allen Schaefer, president of the anti-plaza group Kinderhook Neighbors for Good Growth, is suspicious of the survey results after conversations with those polled.        "Would you like to have a Hannaford in Kinderhook? Everyone would like to," says Mr. Schaefer, who believes the company's survey failed ask residents how they felt about the Widewaters proposal as a whole.        His group argues the plaza design is out of scale with the rest of the area's businesses and potentially hazardous to motorists and walkers near the 19-acre building site, just up the road from the Ichabod Crane campus.        Widewaters plans a multi-structure shopping center and restaurant with three access points to the highway as part of the $10 million Hannaford Brothers project.        The DeWitt-based developer hired DataUSA of Connecticut to survey residents.        Mr. Long says the poll results for Kinderhook, which has one supermarket, show an "overwhelming desire for additional food- shopping choice."        When asked what they thought most important, he says, 44% of the supporters told DataUSA they wanted to see increased competition or thought the store was needed.        Another 13% of supporters put convenience at the top of the list, says Mr. Long, while another 10% of people said the town of Kinderhook needs more businesses.        Other reasons given for backing the controversial project include grocery bill savings, additional jobs, and customer satisfaction with Hannaford stores.        "As a private-sector company, we can succeed only by sponsoring projects the community wants. Clearly, an overwhelming majority want a Hannaford supermarket at the location we've proposed," says Mr. Long.        "We're gratified that the poll shows that the supermarket meets the community's needs. The people of Widewaters have worked long and hard to bring to Kinderhook the quality retail choice its citizens want and deserve," he says.        Mr. Long says the Widewaters proposal places the development precisely where town officials decided to encourage retail growth when they adopted Kinderhook's Comprehensive Plan.        But Mr. Schaefer says the proposed shopping center, which will require changes to the traffic flow here, is the wrong way to bring consumers more options and the town more jobs.        "We've always said it's too big and in the wrong place. I don't think KNGG can say it's against what Widewaters wants to bring here, it's the way they want to do it and where they want to put it," says Mr. Schaefer.        He fears the commercial development experienced by East Greenbush on Columbia Turnpike could come to Kinderhook if the town doesn't take necessary precautions.        "The Comprehensive Plan is a very good plan and it was a first step, [but] unfortunately the zoning code does not follow it. I'd like to see less density and more of a restraint on the size and kind of businesses," says Mr. Schaefer.        He hopes the recent formation of a committee to study the 9/9H corridor and the possibilities for future development there will help prevent suburban sprawl.        Mr. Schaefer also worries the loss of farm land to build shopping plazas that could be empty someday like those in other parts of Upstate New York could cause irreversible damage to the town and the national food supply.        He says KNGG has met with farmers to discuss alternatives to selling their land to developers, including the establishment of conservation easements.        "Kinderhook is a national treasure. We've got to protect what we have," says Mr. Schaefer.        Mr. Long, addressing concerns about increased traffic, says most of the minority opposed to the project based their objections to the perceived impact on local roads.        "Widewaters recognizes that any retail development envisioned by the town for this tract, whether it be ours or another firm's, will alter highway traffic patterns," says Mr. Long.        "That is why we have worked closely with the state Department of Transportation to develop improvements for the Routes 9/9H-State Farm Road intersection," he says.        Those improvements will make the intersection easier and safer to use than it is today, says Mr. Long, whose firm is talking with the DOT about the possibility of constructing a traffic circle at the intersection.        That and other road work will be funded entirely by Widewaters, he says.        The structure of the survey and its questions included no prompting or information about the project, says Mr. Long.        The ultimate decision on whether the developer can move forward, however, rests with the town Planning Board. FOR A KNGG REBUTTAL ON POLL CLICK ON "Rebuttal Advertisement"under WIDEWATERS COMMONS

©The Independent 2004

FEBRUARY 21, 2003 - The Independent Indian ghosts could haunt Widewaters site

By:MATTHEW SHEEHEY 02/21/2003

While harvesting corn one day, Mr. Magee stopped the tractor out of the blue.        "He saw something in the field and got off the tractor," says Mr. Simonsen, speaking of his introduction to archaeology at what is now Roxbury Farm.        Mr. Magee, who lived into the 1990s but never had electricity or indoor plumbing in his farmhouse, gave the boy what he had found in the cornrow.        It was an arrowhead, one of a myriad artifacts the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation thinks may be buried at a potential building site in another field just up the highway from the old Magee place.        The state says the location of the Widewaters Group's proposed $10 million supermarket and shopping center at the intersection of Routes 9 and 9H here is a place where "multiple archaeological resources are present."        So the Office of Parks requires what's known as a Phase I Survey of the 19-acre property by archaeologists as part of the town's review of the project.        "Primarily prehistoric, some sites were identified in the early 1920s by then state Archaeologist Arthur Parker, while the majority of sites have been identified recently as a result of compliance under [the State Environmental Quality Review Act]," writes the Parks office in a letter to the Kinderhook Planning Board and other interested parties.        "Your project has the potential to have an adverse effect on those or other previously unidentified cultural resources," the letter continues.        Mr. Simonsen, the Planning Board chairman, was surprised by the news despite his earlier experience with artifacts hidden below Kinderhook's rich soil.        "It came as a surprise to me, but if there are indeed archaeological artifacts out there, we have to find out," he says.        The Planning Board was expected to discuss the state's request for a survey of the field at last night's meeting as part of a larger workshop on what ought to be included in the Widewaters Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement.        That statement was ordered by the town due to new information about potential impacts of the shopping plaza on traffic, noise, and other aspects of life.        So the archaeological survey may be included in the Planning Board's ruling on the scope of the supplemental impact statement Widewaters must complete.        "If you read the letter, it's really addressed to us, so it's probably our responsibility to have this study done and be reimbursed by the applicant," says Mr. Simonsen.        He has yet to be responsible for this type of study during his tenure on the board.        But Scott Stull, the senior historic archaeologist at Hartgen Archaeological Associates in Rensselaer, works for a company that performed over 1,500 archaeological surveys across the state in the past two years alone.        The work Hartgen does is required for any development that must win federal permits or approval under the State Environmental Quality Review Act by the National Historic Preservation Act and other legislation.        A Phase I study, which the parks office wants for the Widewaters review, could take two months or more for a 19-acre construction site in a town like Kinderhook, says Mr. Stull.        But it will cost Widewaters only $10,000 to $15,000.        "In terms of the amount of money that's being put into a project, it's remarkably insignificant," says Mr. Stull, who lives in East Greenbush.        "The cost for making sure other legislative requirements are met is far more. A traffic study costs more than an archaeological survey," he adds.        But these studies must be planned well in advance.        First a team of archaeologists performs a "sensitivity assessment" by walking a building site and reviewing any documents pertaining to the local historical record and any artifacts that may have been found in the area.        The team then performs a lengthy series of subsurface tests by digging around by hand in search of objects or other evidence of a long-ago human presence.        "Cultural deposits at an archaeological site are very distinct," says Mr. Stull. He looks for things like a stain left in the dirt by a post or a place where people may have done their cooking, which is how some area researchers recently discovered an Iroquois longhouse in the Mohawk Valley.        And this part of Columbia County has plenty of things to dig up.        "In Kinderhook you could find 17th century material, Dutch or Anglo-Dutch, anything from the 18th century or the 19th century," says Mr. Stull.        "When you start looking at the prehistoric material, you could find anything from 10,000 years ago," he adds, citing the mastodon uncovered in Hyde Park two years ago.        If someone like Mr. Stull finds something of significance at the Widewaters property, whether it's man-made or naturally occurring, they will call for further study.        That could hold things up for the developer, but it's worth the wait, he says.        "It's all about preserving the information that's there, because if an archaeological site is destroyed, it's gone forever," says Mr. Stull.        Back down 9H, across from Kinderhook Toyota, the land where Mr. Magee made his living and found so many treasures won't be built up anytime soon.        But if new businesses or housing ever sought to go there, they'd surely need to make sure archaeologists had a good look under the fields.        "He had a house there that was loaded with Native American artifacts--arrowheads, tomahawk heads, spear points," says Mr. Simonsen of the boyhood neighbor who gave him the arrowhead that summer day in the corn field.        Mr. Magee's cache of ancient hunting tools and weapons could be evidence of an important native settlement or burial ground in the Kinderhook area, he says.        And that's why archaeologists need a look at the Widewaters site.        Marco Marzocchi, spokesman for the developer, was unavailable for comment yesterday due to travel.

©The Independent 2004

WATCHING TV the other night we were struck by a brief report on a meeting in an Albany suburb. What's happening there, at least as far as we could determine from this one brief report, sounds strikingly like the battle raging in Kinderhook over yet another strip mall proposal.       In the Albany area community, a developer wants to build a new strip mall on a piece of property zoned commercial. In Kinderhook, a different developer wants to build along Route 9 on land that's mostly in a commercial zone. In each community, a group of neighbors has turned out in force to block the proposal.       The two communities are quite different in size and character, but the arguments advanced by both sides in both cases remind us that new forces are at work even at a time when it seems all upstate New York would welcome development with open arms.       We start with the assumption that a new supermarket chain store would be good for Kinderhook, especially one that would take over the store that used to be part of the defunct Grand Union chain. The wholesale groceries company that now operates the market doesn't want to be in the retail business, but the Widewaters Group, which proposes a new plaza with a Hannaford Brothers supermarket near the intersection of Routes 9 and 9H, could not or would not occupy the existing plaza. That's a business decision we won't question.       So why are some people up in arms? Both the Albany and local cases have schools nearby, which means parents are worried about increased traffic where their children ride, drive or walk. In the case of the Widewaters proposal, the plan has also set off alarm bells at the state Department of Transportation, which issued a blistering critique of flaws in the company's proposed traffic pattern.       We assume the DOT pointed out deficiencies that should have been apparent from the outset. And that raises the question of why a developer as experienced as Widewaters would offer such a sloppy and potentially dangerous plan for traffic flow. Do other parts of the plan contain similarly ill-advised proposals?       In the Albany area case as in Kinderhook opponents claim the developers have also ignored community standards, citing water supply, light pollution and sprawl.       Some advocates of the plaza in Kinderhook believe these objections are ploys intended to derail a legitimate business enterprise in an approved location. They see the real source of the problem as a conflict with the aesthetic standards of an articulate minority. We've heard the opponents' concerns dismissed as a knee-jerk NIMBY reaction.       We don't agree. The protesters in this case are middle-class, home-owning taxpayers. Their views on the scope and style of local development fall well within contemporary mainstream values. And one of the hallmarks of these values is a more cautious and skeptical appraisal of the impact of new development.       What's more, the opponents represent precisely the group that tenants of the Widewaters project hope to attract as customers. A bitter fight over a flawed proposal that divides the community hardly seems the way to lure shoppers.       We hope Widewaters will rethink its proposal, taking into consideration all the concerns expressed not only by the DOT but by residents worried about how this project will affect their lives.       Eventually someone will build a new market somewhere in Kinderhook that is both an asset for the residents and quite likely a profitable venture. The historic architecture and magnificent views of the town, not to mention its attractive demographics, present an exceptional opportunity for some developer to create a model project tailored to the needs of the community. The key to realizing that goal lies in understanding that opposition to the Widewaters proposal is not marginal NIMBY whining; it is the voice of the market speaking loud and clear. The company would be wise to heed it.

©The Independent 2004