Woodstock Planning Board resumes Zena Homes driveway review
- Stop Zena Development
- 6 days ago
- 2 min read
By WILLIAM J. KEMBLE | news@freemanonline.com
PUBLISHED: November 11, 2025 at 4:20 PM EST
WOODSTOCK, N.Y. — Review of the proposed Zena Homes’ 1,400-foot-long extension of Eastwoods Drive resumed last week with a contentious discussion among town Planning Board members that lasted 80 minutes.
Board Chairman Peter Cross said during the Thursday, Nov. 6, meeting that the two requests from Zena Development LLC were not complicated beyond having the proposed project connected to a much larger application for a project with up to 54 units in the adjacent town of Ulster.
“We have before us … two (driveway) applications,” he said. “One is a lot line deletion (separating) two parcels that make up the road, which is absolutely no problem, no issue. The other one is widening the road a little … so the wetlands buffer a bit, a very small amount, and we had to mitigate that.”
The issue for developers is having the road go through the Zena Woods Critical Environmental Area, which requires securing wetlands and traffic specialists for the mitigation review efforts. Those are being done because the property is currently landlocked on the Ulster side, but it does abut the developers’ parcels in Woodstock, where Eastwoods Drive allows access but does not go all the way to the project site.
The Planning Board had sought to be the lead agency over the entire project, which includes the Ulster town application for Zena Development to subdivide 106.6 acres into 30 lots. Twenty-two of the lots could be used for duplex buildings and 18 would be for single-family homes. However, an Oct. 29 state Department of Environmental Conservation decision split the oversight to Woodstock for the driveway and the town of Ulster for the primary application.
The project’s size was a problem for board member Genie Tartell because of the location in a forested area and the limited access that emergency vehicles would have to the site.
“If you walk through those woods during the summer, they are a tinderbox,” she said. “For us not to consider a secondary road is not doing what the Planning Board is supposed to be doing in Woodstock, which is primarily ensuring the safety of our citizens.”
Although the state determination insisted that the Ulster town Planning Board must “identify, assess, and mitigate environmental impacts associated with the construction and operation of the proposed subdivision,” Woodstock town Planning Board member John LaValle wasn’t optimistic the concerns would be addressed.
“The non-cooperation when it comes to the town of Ulster has been legendary,” said LaValle, a former town supervisor. “I have 50 years of sitting on these boards and … when it comes to the town of Ulster, communications is nonexistent. (We’re) literally going to have to force them to listen.”