by Lynne Jackson

ALBANY, NY: Save the Pine Bush has filed an appeal in January to the Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Third Judicial Department in the matter of Save the Pine Bush vs. Town of Guilderland and others over Pyramid Corporation’s proposal to build apartments, office buildings and a Costco in the Pine Bush.

Originally, SPB filed suit in NYS Supreme Court. The NYS Supreme Court judge dismissed the case, saying that a previous decision in favor of the Town in a lawsuit filed by Guilderland residents required our petition to also be dismissed.

Save the Pine Bush argues that the prior case brought by the residents (referred to as Hart) did not address the environmental issues that SPB raises in the current litigation and that the lawsuit should be heard on the merits in Supreme Court.

The environmental issues that the court needs to address include taking a hard look at how these proposed projects may impact endangered and threatened species, the impact on wetlands, the effects of air pollution, among other issues.

With the issues of global warming and mass extinction of species, what are we doing paving more land, especially our own globally rare Pine Bush? There are a lot of places Pyramid Corporation can build other than in the Pine Bush. We must preserve our ecosystems and we hope the courts will agree with us.