At its April 27 meeting, the Gardiner Planning Board once again sent Kimlin Propane back to the drawing board on its Site Plan Amendment that would expand the energy company’s flagship fuel storage and distribution facility at 14 Steve’s Lane. While located at the entrance to a light industrial zone, the site adjoins the Wallkill Valley Rail Trail and a residential neighborhood on Dusinberre Road, and neighbors have complained to town officials for years about noise from late-night fuel deliveries.
Among the new documents brought before the board were a revised site plan reflecting a proposal by Kimlin to reconfigure its parking lot to situate the tanker unloading area from the north side of the storage tanks to the west side, in an effort to reduce noise impacts on nearby homes. This rearrangement would require a waiver allowing some of the parking spaces, originally proposed to be behind the buildings to conform with Gardiner zoning code, to be moved instead to the street side of the parcel.
Kimlin attorney Jennifer Gray reported that her client had engaged a new engineering consultant, Barton & Loguidice, DPC, to conduct further noise studies after the board complained at previous meetings that the tests already conducted were inadequate, particularly with regard to nighttime readings. (Barton & Loguidice is a familiar and trusted entity to the Gardiner Planning Board, especially since its clerk, Glenn Gidaly, is a staff member there.) “The new noise consultant has prepared a new protocol,” Gray said, with additional testing to be performed in the near future. Planning Board member Marc Moran urged that a noise study be conducted to measure impacts on “residential properties to the north and northwest” of the facility, as well as to the east.
The applicant submitted details for a noise-buffering fence to be constructed on the eastern side of the facility, bordering the rail trail. Replacing an existing vinyl fence, it will sit atop an earthen berm and consist of cedar boards overlapping a sound-absorbing fabric called Acoustifence AF-6. Sections of existing fence that encroach on town-owned rail trail property will also be removed. The board gave its blessing to the design after insisting that the exposed wood surface cover the fabric on both sides, not only on the street side.
The Planning Board voted down Kimlin’s request to commence public hearings on the application at its May meeting. Board chair Paul Colucci told Gray that a public hearing would not be scheduled until completed noise studies, a landscaping plan and Board of Health approval for a relocated septic field had been submitted.
Join the family! 
