NIMBY IN ACTION - THE HARD TRUTH BEHIND 850 ROUTE 28

We have heard this claim before - 'why don't you build in a more appropriate area?' However, the reality is that NIMBY is everywhere - there are currently no sites in Ulster that wouldn't attract some opposition. There is now too much financial gain for these organizations to resist calls to 'shut down' private businesses. They use controversy to 'gin up outrage and call for donations for their organizations' - its a clear pattern.

There are no development sites in Ulster that environmental groups like CMK/WLC/OSI will commit ahead of time to not oppose for development. There is no pre-planning with county or local governments to ensure investor/developers won't get blindsided by environmentalist attacks. So at any time these and other groups will attack anything proposed at any time - there is no attempt to preclude senseless lawsuits, oppositions and delays.

The 850 Route 28 project is a perfect example of this predicament - its an abandoned open rock quarry that had been sitting unused for MANY years, and for sale, during which time particulate from the exposed bedrock during storms gushed into ponds and streams. It wasn't adding to tax rolls or employing anyone - sat mostly empty. The prior owner of the site used it as a junkyard for old vehicles. INTERESTINGLY, the 850 site wasn't purchased by OSI/WLC/CMK when they had plenty of opportunity to do so - instead they purchased (right after 850 was purchased by current developer) 220 acres beside the site that almost surrounds most of the 850 property. THESE LOCAL ENVIRONMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS HAD EVERY OPPORTUNITY TO BUY 850 SITE, BUT PASSED ON IT. That point alone shows that this site was not considered 'sensitive' or desirable by OSI/WLC/CMK, otherwise they would have sought to buy it themselves. BUT NOW.... they claim it IS A DESIRABLE AND A VERY SENSITIVE SITE. It begs the question - WHAT CHANGED???

What is happening here and elsewhere is environmental organizations are seeking to create ever-expanding buffers around ever expanding parklands, and nonsensically feel they have a 'veto' over private landowner's rights - what private land owners can and can not do on their property - they want to determine 'who their neighbors will be or do' on their own land. And in the meantime, jobs, tax revenue, infrastructure creation are lost, reduced, delayed. These groups only response, when asked, to helping the local economy is 'parks will help tourism' - but tourism in Ulster is already #1 industry and we have already seen what over-tourism and over-use of parks can bring. Instead of fighting with businesses, why are these environmental groups not trying to work with them? 850 Route 28 has sought that from the beginning, but has only received endless attempts to slow-down, distract, derail the project. Opponents haven't once asked to meet with the 850 developers - NOT ONCE - to find common ground. WHY IS THAT?

In the meantime, the opposition groups like OSI/WLC/CMK continue to ask for donations while too many locals go jobless, towns are starved of desperately needed tax revenue, and the costs of infrastructure go up up up because everything has to be imported.

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