More than 50 years after Woodstock’s famous concert — which was actually in Bethel — the upstate town is grappling with another potential influx of people.
Developer Woodstock National is planning a 620-acre project along Sawkill Creek, the Times Union reported. It would be the largest development in the history of Woodstock, straddling Zena Woods on the eastern edge of Woodstock and the border of Ulster County.
The two men behind the proposal — presented to the planning board last month — spent years at WeWork: Eddie Greenberg, now a developer, and Evan Kleinberg, who made real estate deals on behalf of the fast-fading co-working giant.
They are floating 191 homes — 90 single-family, 77 townhouses and up to 24 affordable units — a golf course and, in a monumental public-relations blunder, a helipad.
The prospect of wealthy out-of-towners and golf VIPs choppering in for a few rounds of golf horrifies some Woodstockers,” the Times-Union wrote. Inclusion of a helipad in Amazon’s proposed Long Island City campus fueled opposition to that project, which Amazon abandoned.
Woodstock National has a deal with Walrus Properties to buy the massive tract, but can exit the deal before the end of October and will use the time to determine if its project is viable.
Community pushback will help answer that question. Opponents are already coming out of the woodwork, voicing concerns about the project’s impact on the environment and on community character.
“We have so many concerns,” Woodstock Land Conservancy’s Andy Mossey told the publication, citing “forest habitat, aquifer recharge zones, streams that feed into Sawkill Creek, wildlife habitats, traffic.”
Woodstock National’s proposal also faces a hurdle in the town code. Woodstock has a Housing Oversight Task Force that is two years into a re-envisioning of the zoning code to bring affordable housing development. A task force member expressed doubt that the proposal would pass muster with the revised code, which has yet to be presented to the public let alone approved by the Town Board.
Greenberg and Kleinberg’s interest in the area is not a surprise. Property values in Woodstock have soared since the pandemic and remote work spiked interest in country living, especially in communities that have walkable shopping districts, cultural activities and good restaurants.
Woodstock has those, and the added advantage of an association with the historic music festival. Also, many of its homes are dated and few are for sale, so a new development would face little competition.
— Holden Walter-Warner
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