Seaford Harbor School One Step Closer to New Access Road

After eagerly awaiting word from consultants, the Seaford Board of Education received the on Thursday evening at their monthly meeting. This review is a key component in constructing the long awaited  access road, which is meant to connect Bayview Street and Ionia Street in order to alleviate traffic congestion around the school.

The SEQRA process requires that all new actions taken, similar to the access road situation, must go under a complete environmental review to determine what impacts and concerns could arise.

“It allows to consult and coordinate with the various agencies that permit authority over those projects and to develop litigation measures to protect against any potential impacts,” said David Wortman, a Project Manager with VHB Engineering who has been working as an environmental consultant for the district on this project.

There are several steps in the SEQRA process, including preparing environmental assessment forms, project plans, inclusion of relevant information, identifying potential environmental impacts and technical analysis. In the case of this project, the relevant analysis that was performed pertained to construction related impacts, influence on the wetlands, potential problems for ecological resources and problems with storm water runoffs.

“We have identified the various habitats, including the wetland associated habitats, on the property and consulted with the New York State Natural Heritage Program, which maintains records on threatened species,” Wortman said. “During those site inspections, we observed that there were none of these species at the site.”

The vacant piece of land that is proposed to be used to build the new access road, which has allegedly been in planning since the 1970’s, is currently 1.4 acres sitting adjacent to the Seaford Harbor School and is owned by the county. The new road would give another access point to the school and would be approximately 320 feet in length.

“This has been a very lengthy process so we want to make sure that we have all of our t’s crossed and i's dotted going forward,” said Superintendent Brian Conboy.

As part of the review, they inspected environmental data and maps to identify conditions in the vicinity of the parcel of land, in addition to participating in an on site investigation with Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) staff. Currently, Wortman said, the DEC application is still pending, but they expect to be issuing a permit shortly.

“We were able to obtain for the district coverage under a permit from the Army Corp to undertake the project,” said Wortman. “Being so close to the water, we are in what is called a coastal management zone. The state has policies for development within those areas. We found that the project is consistent with the relevant policies.

The district became the lead agency on the declaration and made what is referred to as a “determination of significance” where they can either decide that there will or will not be an impact on the area. From the information provided, the Board of Education determined that there would not be an environmental impact on the area in question and to go ahead with the acquisition of land from the county.

As the Board of Education unanimously passed the acceptance of the negative impact of the project as found by SEQRA, new apprehensions about obtaining the land came into conversation. Seaford school board member Bruce Kahn brought up questions about starting the progression of acquiring the parcel of land from Nassau County, which also requires state approval from Albany.

“I have two letters signed and ready to go- one to Assemblyman McDonough and one to Senator Fuschillo asking for them to help with the expedience of getting the Alienation of Park Land materials fast routed so we don’t have to continue to wait for another lengthy process,” Conboy said.

In order for the county to transfer the land to the district for this project, they have to first identify another parcel of land to designate to take the place of the transferred land under the Alienation of Park Land Act, Conboy explained.

According to the school district’s legal counsel, after the land is transferred, the next step would comprise of a referendum vote to redistribute the left over money from a 2007 capital improvements bond, which has to be done because the access road wasn’t included in the initial bond proposal.

“We still need to gain approval form the voters of Seaford to use the money left over from the bond issue from 2007 in order to complete this project,” Conboy said.

No definitive time frame was established, but Conboy was hopeful that the area’s two legislators will help move the process along so that the Seaford Harbor School can benefit from the new access road as soon as possible.