School board OKs funding Woods Highway project

Feb 05, 2008 @ 10:36 PM

Observer-Dispatch

NEW HARTFORD - The school board wants the town to provide basic quality of life services such as water and sewer connection to residents on Woods Highway, where the proposed New Hartford Business Park may be built.

At Tuesday's meeting, the board approved a deal in which the three taxing jurisdictions - the town, the county and the school district - will give up tax money now to fund improvements on Woods Highway. The 125-acre business park is being built by New Hartford Office Group LLC, an affiliate of the Cameron Group LLC, a Syracuse-based firm.

A motion also was unanimously approved to ask the town to provide updates of the new development in the region to the residents who will be impacted by it and to see if certain basic services can be provided as part of the project in a cost-effective way to those residents.

Residents on Woods Highway have been without water or a sewer connection, and this development might be an opportunity to provide those to the residents, board member Robert Calli said at the meeting.

He said he fully supports the collaborative effort among the three taxing parties, but an additional resolution as part of the project to the town of New Hartford should be made requesting it to “not forget the Woods Highway residents.”

“These people will be immediately affected by the development,” he said.

Under the new development plan, Woods Highway would be extended to connect to state Route 840. Its intersection with Seneca Turnpike also will be improved. Currently, it is a country road.

School Superintendent Dan Gilligan said this opportunity must not be lost.

“This might be used to make some of these improvements,” he said.

“Respective of cost factors, every effort should be made to accommodate those residents.”

Certain officials from the town and the Highway department will meet today to discuss the issue, including the cost. Supervisor Earle Reed said the developer has agreed to help out.

“I think we can do a lot of nice things,” he said. “It has been kind of a rural area. We need to get a sense of it.”

If a water district needs to be created, it will be the town that will bear the expenses, Reed said.

* In other matters, the school board also approved the donation of about 17 acre of land from developer Lawrence Adler, a principal in the New Hartford Office Group LLC.

Adler owns the land-locked parcel behind Oneida-Herkimer-Madison BOCES. The land has been gifted to the district to explore options for building a shared maintenance facility.