Search Results for: Park Avenue

Earth Day Lasagna-Wasserman Headlines Gathering Of Activists

Earth Day Lasagna-Wasserman Headlines Gathering Of Activists Earth Day Lasagna Wasserman Headlines Gathering Of Activists By Daniel Van Riper Five prominent and hard-working environmental activists addressed the Earth Day special lasagna dinner on April 24th at 1st Presbyterian Church in Albany. Some 80 attendees packed the room and listened intently to each speaker in turn. Here’s the lineup, in order of appearance: Lee Wasserman Everyone was curious to see and hear the very serious challenger for the job of congressional…

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Don Reeb — The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

by Tom Ellis   ALBANY, NY: Retired University at Albany economics professor and McKownville Improvement Association president Don Reeb was the speaker at the November 18 SPB dinner.  Don spoke about SUNY Poly — formerly College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE): The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.  Don is 82 years old.  He said the neighborhood contain 900 houses and the neighborhood association has a $300 annual budget.  He said only forty percent of registered voters in county legislature districts 3 and 4 voted in November.  He makes…

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Chris Hawver of the Commission Speaks

by Tom Ellis   ALBANY: Albany Pine Bush Management Commission (APBMC or the Commission) Executive Director Chris Hawver was the October 15 SPB dinner speaker.  Lynne Jackson and I introduced him saying that Save the Pine Bush is very pleased that the Commission exists and is protecting the Pine Bush.  Lynne said the work of SPB has become institutionalized with the APBMC. Chris said he has worked for the Commission since 1993, first as fire management coordinator, later as conservation director, and, beginning…

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Public Advocate Dominick Calsolaro

By Tom Ellis ALBANY, NY: Former Albany First Ward Common Council member Dominick Calsolaro spoke at the June 18 SPB dinner about Environmental Issues in Albany.  He began thanking SPB President Rezsin Adams for her many years of friendship.  During the US-Vietnam War, he said, Rezsin often came into his family’s restaurant.  Dominick spoke about the many issues he worked on during his 12 years on the Albany Common Council, some of which he continues working on. He said the big issue in…

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The Importance of the Tivoli Preserve

by Tom Ellis ALBANY: George Robinson, a restoration ecologist with the University at Albany’s Department of Biological Sciences, spoke at the June 19 SPB dinner at Westminster Presbyterian Church about the history of restoration planning for the Tivoli preserve. For those unfamiliar with it, the Tivoli preserve is located north of Livingston Avenue and behind the former Philip Livingston school. The Tivoli lake (or pond) is a few hundred yards west of the former school. Also located in the Tivoli…

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Historic Rapp Road Community— An Update

We continually remember before Our GOD and Father Your Work produced by Faith Your Labor prompted by Love, and Your Endurance Inspired by Hope in Our LORD JESUS CHRIST. 1 Thessalonians 1:3 Our ancestors lived by this scripture and put it to use in daily life. They believed that Hope and ultimately Faith produced Endurance and Perseverance. They left oppression, poverty and racism behind in the South with nothing more than the clothes on their backs. The meager earnings they…

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1 Rapp Road, Extension Development

By Andy Arthur and Grace Nichols We went to Albany Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) Meeting on Feb. 27, 2013 to comment on the proposed extension of the 1 Rapp Road, which is at the corner of South Frontage Road and Rapp Road. The proposal would add a one floor expansion on to the back of 1 Rapp Road, building in the adjoining area between 1 Rapp Road and 5 Rapp Road. The proposal would also add 12 parking spots,…

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Expansion of the Landfill in the Pine Bush

ALBANY: The City of Albany has applied for a permit to expand the landfill in the Pine Bush. The battle has begun! On Wednesday, February 21 at 7:00 PM at the Polish Community Center (255 Washington Avenue Extension, corner of Rapp Road), the NYS Department of Environmental Conversation will hold a Public Scoping Session on the proposed expansion. The purpose of the hearing is to allow the public to submit comments on the scope of issues to be covered in…

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Crossgates Casts a Dark Shadow Over the Pine Bush

ALBANY, NY: Just when you thought it was safe to go to the mall, Pyramid Crossgates proposes yet another project to destroy Pine Bush and potential Karner Blue habitat. Albany City Hall was the setting for Pyramid to describe to the Albany Common Council Zoning Committee how its proposal to build a residence inn hotel on 3.72 acres adjacent to the one of the largest sites of Karner Blues will have no environmental impact. In 1998, Pyramid Crossgates illegally bulldozed…

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History Mauled Again – City Did Dirty Deal Selling Historic Site History Mauled Again City Did Dirty Deal Selling Historic Site Feb./Mar. 95 by Lynne Jackson I have been reading this book, The Fifth Discipline in which the author, Peter M. Senge, says that it is often the structure of the situation that makes people behave in certain ways. In a given situation, according to his theory, widely different people will do the same thing. This is obviously what happened…

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Oral Argument in Hotel Case Heard in Appellate Division

Go directly to Common Council Members Download a PDF of this announcement ALBANY: Tharaldson Development Company of North Dakota, wants to construct a Residence Inn Mariott hotel on Washington Avenue Extension, adjacent to a known Karner Blue butterfly site and a site that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service recognizes as occupied by Karner Blues. Sound familiar? Save the Pine Bush has been fighting this development since the hotel project was first proposed in 2003. We won in NYS Supreme…

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Save the Pine Bush Court Cases

Save the Pine Bush has been in almost litigation to preserve the Pine Bush since February 6, 1978. With the advent of PDF documents, it is now possible for Save the Pine Bush to inexpensively give the public access to our lawsuits. Click the links to download the files. Some are quite large, please be patient. Decision in Save the Pine Bush’s lawsuit against the City of Albany over the proposed landfill expansion in the Pine Bush. We lost. Lawsuits…

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Residence Inn Hotel – Proposal is Back!

ALBANY: First proposed in the fall of 2003, this “Residence Inn” proposal for the Albany Pine Bush is back. The developer has written a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS). The public may now comment on this proposal and the DEIS at the hearing scheduled for Monday, April 18 at 7:00 at Albany City Hall, Eagle Street, Albany. This proposed development is on about 4 acres of land owned (or was owned by — see below) by Pyramid Crossgates. It is…

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Home From Nowhere – Book Review

Home From Nowhere – Book Review Home From Nowhere Book Review by Lynne Jackson As a child growing up in the suburbs in the sixties, I really wanted sidewalks. I could not understand why there were no sidewalks. I envied the children who walked to school, and were even allowed to walk home at lunch. As I got older, I wished that I could take the bus, but as the bus stop was two miles from my house, along a…

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Roads in the Pine Bush – John Poorman Speaks about the CDTC

by Lynne Jackson ALBANY: John Poorman, Executive Director of the Capital District Regional Planning Commission spoke at the July SPB vegetarian/vegan lasagna dinner. Mr. Poorman began by describing what the Capital District Regional Planning Commission (CDTC) is. The CDTC is the designated “Metropolitan Planning Organization” (MPO) for four counties, Albany, Rensselaer, Saratoga and Schenectady. Under federal law, the CDTC’s responsibilities are to provide a forum to discuss transportation needs and develop transportation plans in the context of social, economic and…

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Tree Clear Cut

GUILDERLAND, NY: If you haven’t already heard or seen it, March 26 was an horrible day for the trees on the site for the proposed Costco; Respect and adherence to the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQR) by the Town of Guilderland; and any expectation for a fair process from the Guilderland Planning Board’s review of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed developments by the Pyramid (Crossgates) Companies. On Thursday morning, March 26, 2020 at 10:17AM,…

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Rezsin Adams Remembered At the Save the Pine Bush Dinner

by Tom Ellis, October 2020 Newsletter ALBANY: Save the Pine Bush President Rezsin Adams, who died August 13 at age 93, was lovingly honored and remembered at a September 16 virtual Save the Pine Bush meeting facilitated by Lynne Jackson. Carol Waterman said Rezsin had a wonder-ful sense of humor, could be hilarious, and once allowed herself to be all dolled up as part of a La-dies Against Women guerrilla group skit; Rezsin posed and preened like a fashion model….

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Second lawsuit filed over Guilderland Planning Board’s approval of Pyramid project

Published on Tuesday, December 1, 2020 – 17:34 in the Altamont Enterprise Lynne Jackson of Save the Pine Bush speaks at a press conference announcing a Nov. 20 court decision to halt Pyramid’s plans to build a Costco and 222 residential units near Crossgates Mall in Guilderland.  GUILDERLAND — A week after a judge in Albany County Supreme Court ruled in favor of a group of Westmere residents and a Guilderland gas-station owner who were seeking to stop construction of a 222-unit development…

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The Residents and the Pine Bush Win Against Pyramid Justice Prevails

by Lynne Jackson ALBANY: In an astonishing, detailed, and carefully written decision, Judge Peter Lynch handed a victory to Westmere Terrace residents and a gas-station owner, the plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed against the Town of Guilderland Planing Board and Pyramid Management Group. The decision makes null and void all of the approvals the Planning Board gave to Pyramid for its proposed development project known as the “Rapp Road Residential/Western Avenue Mixed Use Redevelopment Projects. This is a significant victory…

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Save Holy Innocents Church, Albany, New York

Letter to the editor, Times Union, July 21, 2015 Photos by John Wolcott of Holy Innocents Fate of Albany’s historic Holy Innocents church unclear An opportunity to save the former Church of the Holy Innocents Seriously Endangered Church of The Holy Innocents Section of former Church of Holy Innocents collapses Read excerpts from a book about Holy Innocents Floor Plan of the Church of the Holy Innocents Read the story of Holy Innocents Church in Albany, New York, and why…

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Proposed Crossgates Development

by Lynne Jackson GUILDERLAND, NY: Rapp Road Development, a corporate entity of Pyramid/Crossgates, is proposing to build on about 46 acres of land. Originally, the proposal was to build 222 apartments on 20 acres of land adjacent to the Pine Bush preserve. After the Town Planning Board appointed themselves the lead agency, the project was exapanded to include a proposed Costco and an undefined commercial/residential development on an additional 26 acres of land. The proposal is huge. To put this…

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“Farmers” Sue Albany Pine Bush Management Commission

by John Wolcott The Albany Pine Bush Management Commission was sued last summer by a group of individuals accusing the Commission of “conspiring to reduce the value of their land.” The Times Union characterized the plaintiffs in the law suit against the Commission as “several farmers”. Actually, there are several individual plaintiffs but out of these seven we only know three of them to be farmers for a certainty.Their lawyer is Paul Wein whom we all remember from two Pine…

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Letter-Writing Made a Difference Your Letters Needed to Help the Karner Blue Butterfly

by Lynne Jackson, Mar./Apr. 92 The Karner Blue has been proposed to be listed as an endangered species by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. If the butterfly is listed as an endangered species with a designated critical habitat, any developments proposed within the habitat would need to have a federal permit in order to be built. Obtaining a federal permit is a much more rigorous and difficult process to go through than the zoning changes or Planning Board approvals-and…

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Virtual Exhibit

What is the Pine Bush? The Pine Bush is the only sizable inland pine barrens sand dunes in the United States, and is recognized world&endash;wide as a unique pine barrens ecosystem. It contains over 300 species of vertebrate animals, over 1,500 species of plants, and over 10,000 species of insects and other invertebrate animals. Many of them are rare and restricted to the Pine Bush habitat. Its most famous occupant, the Karner Blue Butterfly, is on the Federal and State’s…

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How does Save the Pine Bush stop developers?

Save the Pine Bush uses the courts to force government agencies to follow environmental preservation laws. The City of Albany has been notorious for ignoring the State Environmental Quality Review Act. We have been very successful in our lawsuits to block improper approvals of construction projects in the Pine Bush. Save the Pine Bush’s Victories and Challenges Victories ·The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) purchased “Karner Meadows” (also known as Blueberry Hill) a 190 acre site near…

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Save the Pine Bush Court Cases

Save the Pine Bush has been in almost litigation to preserve the Pine Bush since February 6, 1978. The seven cases we have litigated in courts since 1997 can be found on NY Supreme Court’s Web Civ by searching “Save the Pine Bush”. Court YearFiled Index Number CaseStatus Plaintiff FirstPlaintiff Firm Defendant FirstDefendant Firm Justice Albany Supreme Court   1997  7685-97  (0007685/1997)  Disposed  Save The Pine Bush  Lewis B. Oliver  Guilderland  Dennis C. Vacco  GEORGE L. COBB   Albany Supreme Court…

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Fighting the Crossgates Expansion

Dear All, The proposed apartment complex on Rapp Road in Guilderland is back.  Pyramid sold the 19 acre parcel to a local developer.  This new developer has proposed some modifications to the project.  The new name for the project is Apex at Crossgates. The area where the proposed apartment complex is to be built is recommended for partial protection by the Albany Pine Bush Preserve Commission. The public hearing: Wednesday, July 13 at 7:00 PMGuilderland Town Hall5209 Western TpkGuilderland, NY…

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Newsletters Articles Ordered by Subject

Search Newsletter Archives: What is Full Protection, Partial Protection and who is the Pine Bush? – By Lynne Jackson – June / July 2022 Newsletter A Tribute To Lew Oliver, our wonderful lawyer The Pine Bush’s Most Famous Resident – The Karner Blue Butterfly Save the Pine Bush Victories and Fights The Thruway Authority Comes Across Royally, Dec 99/Jan 00Save the Pine Bush is 25!, Mar/Apr 03 Legislation regarding standing in court We Need the Environmental Access to Justice Act,…

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