GOSHEN—The Goshen Town Planning Board held a scoping session for Legoland’s State Environmental Quality Review (SEQR) on July 21 at C.J. Hooker Middle School in Goshen.
The next day, the Orange County Industrial Development Agency (IDA) held a public hearing for people to air their concerns about financial incentives proposed for the Legoland project, an amusement park slated to be built on 523 acres in the Town of Goshen.
A large contingent of union members wearing florescent green T-shirts brought a truck to the Planning Board scoping session with digital screens on the sides and back with messages of support for the project.
In the hot school auditorium, Planning Board Chair Lee Bergus frequently asked the crowd of between 700 and 850 to not interrupt speakers so they could be heard over the whirring fans. Between 80 and 100 people stood up to speak on the project.
The scoping session could only address the environmental impacts of the project, Bergus said. He told the crowd that it would define the extent of the project’s design, “whatever it may be” and would be the framework for the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS). Any concerns raised at the scoping session would have to be addressed in the DEIS.
The comments could also address changes to the comprehensive plan and the town’s local law number six that would create a commercial recreation overlay zoning district for the proposed site, Bergus said.
He clarified that the “SEQR” process is not “secret,” as some residents had thought, confusing the two words that sound like homophones. “These aren’t ’secret‘ meetings,” Bergus said. “They are ’SEQR' meetings.”
