Andrew Faust, an Ulster County resident with a national reputation for permaculture design and practice, appeared before the Saugerties Town Board at its regular meeting on September 18 to share an alternative vision for Winston Farm that supports it being developed as a showcase of the most sustainable agricultural practices. In his talk, sponsored by Beautiful Saugerties, Faust said the area is blessed with an abundance of clean water, which in turn offers the possibility of farming techniques that preserve soil fertility and are sustainable over time.
“The Permaculture Living Land Trust has been asked to play a part in developing an alternative vision for Winston Farm as we begin making it an educational hub with housing for farmers who will be trained in methods that are truly logical and are abundant in our capacity to provide us with food and water,” said Faust. After a good deal of research, he has concluded that Saugerties has the potential to be a “green jobs training center.” Saugerties could become a destination “for people all over the northeast who want to see a community that is actually doing something that is by the people and for the people.”
Winston Farm is historically a livestock farm, Faust said. A star dairy operation that had heritage breed cattle. “The livestock would be part of a system of rotation of animal and plant growth that would develop sustainable food production for the local economy, not to be shipped across the country,” he said.
Faust explained that he has been working with Ulster County on a variety of projects involving soil and water. “I have been working in this community for decades, wanting to bring more food security and water security by bringing forests back into the landscape.” The operation Faust is proposing would also help meet the needs of the many food pantries in the area “that struggle to meet food demands.”
His aim is to make Winston Farm both an agricultural demonstration and education site and “a highly productive agricultural ecosystem.”
In response to a question, Faust said there is a good deal of support behind the vision he presented. One member of the audience asked whether Faust had worked with properties on the scale of Winston Farm. He cited several projects that were considerably larger. Asked for a definition of success, he said, “We have participants, we have products and we have results.”
Another audience member asked how it would be paid for?
“What I am here to do is not share numbers about who is going to pay for what; I am here to share with you a vision,” said Faust. “There are a good number of substantial players at the table who are prepared to finance this vision, and that is a valuable and important and different conversation from what I am here to share with you tonight, which is the components of what we are recommending.” However, as a nonprofit training center, the project would be eligible for educational, development and other funding, as well as private fundraising by the project’s backers, Faust said.
Councilman Mike Ivino asked whether Faust’s organization had been aware of Winston Farm prior to the purchase by local developers. The property is currently owned by three local residents and businessmen, Tony Montano, John Mullen and Randy Richers, who bought the property in July 2020 for $4 million.
Faust said it had not been on his organization’s radar prior to the sale.
Supervisor Fred Costello said that between the concerts on the property and inspection for previous proposals, he has viewed the soils on Winston Farm over the years. “Much of the western portion is dominated by rock outcropping features that didn’t strike me as suitable for agriculture,” said Costello. “Recalling Woodstock ’94, the soil in that area was clay, also not good for agriculture. A previous study of the property revealed that land suitable for agriculture amounted to “about 200 acres of potentially usable land for purposes like we shared this evening. So how do they fit into what you talked about earlier?”
“We know that historically it was a dairy farm,” Faust said. “And we know that pastured animals find [good grazing] places; that’s why we typically find grazing done on less than prime agricultural land. Also, trees do well on those types of soil so what I’m proposing involves tree crops, rotation grazing of animals in an ecologically appropriate way on that site.” The operation would also include composting of materials from throughout the town. “We can build good soil from scratch. On the soils that are better suited to tree crops and grazing, that’s what we’ll do. Does that make sense to you? The numbers show that this is a good investment for the community.”
The question of how Faust’s proposal relates to the fact that the current owners of the property have their own plans and have invested considerable resources to their planned development, was not discussed.
The current proposal includes 799 housing units with a combination of townhouses and apartments, serving an estimated 1,746 residents. Also included in the plan over the 840-acre project would be 250,000-square-feet of commercial space, a 150-room boutique hotel, a conference center with a further 250 hotel rooms, a 5,000-seat enclosed performance space, a 100-cabin campground, and around 250,000-square-feet of laboratory or light industrial space.
The current plan also reaffirms the developers’ stated commitment to open space. It also claims it will be self-sufficient, with two wells yielding a combined 270 gallons of water per minute, meaning, they believe, they will not need to connect the development to municipal water sources.
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