The Woodstock Town Board voiced their disappointment in the lack of communication from Town of Ulster officials involving the proposed Zena Homes subdivision and its controversial access road.
The Woodstock Land Conservancy made a presentation to the Town Board in a packed room Jan. 20, making the case the development will provide all the benefits to the Town of Ulster and none to Woodstock, all while significantly impacting the environment.
Land Conservancy executive director Andy Mossey said the project “seems to be not only inappropriate for the town, but certainly inappropriate for the resources that the town is set to protect.”
Mossey expressed distrust of the developers’ intentions, given their change of plans.
“Do you remember Woodstock National? That was their first name. This goes to show the trend as to where we are now and sort of they’re playing the game with their site plans,” Mossey said.
“Their project, Woodstock National, started with an entire plan for more than 600 acres here. That entire plan included an 18-hole golf course and a helipad and so on and so forth, over 400 units of housing,” he said.
Developers Evan Kleinberg and Eddie Greenberg scaled down that project to include 30 housing lots on 106 acres in the Town of Ulster. However, the sole practical access is via Eastwoods Drive, a private dirt road in the Town of Woodstock.
“And then one day they said, ‘Oh, it seems to us that there’s quite a lot of opposition in this town, so we’ll just do this one corner here in the Town of Ulster,’ which means that all of us who are here in this room no longer are to be impacted by this project in the Town of Woodstock. It doesn’t make much sense to me.”
Mossey also questioned the expense of adding considerable length to Eastwoods Drive.
“That’s a lot of real property taxes the developers will be paying annually just for that privilege of being able to drive to this subdivision,” he said.
“There are currently 39 boxes checked on the environmental assessment form for the Town of Ulster Planning Board in review of the subdivision, and it only takes one of those boxes to grant a positive declaration under SEQRA, and what we’ve heard from the Town of Ulster, they’re still on the fence.”
A positive declaration indicates significant environmental impact requiring review, while a negative declaration means no impact and ends the review process.
Mossey also asserted there are insufficient traffic studies, since the study commissioned by the developer was completed in January 2024, when a portion of Sawkill Road was closed during the day for several weeks to make repairs after a rockslide.
Waivers are needed because the road, once expanded, will be nearly three times the permitted length under town code, which is established to preserve safety of residents and first responders, he explained.
“The Woodstock Town Board is deeply concerned about the potential environmental impacts this project poses on the Town of Woodstock. Accordingly, we respectfully request that the board coordinate its SEQRA review of the project with the Woodstock Planning Board as required by law and as requested by Woodstock Planning Board in their Nov. 10, 2025, and Jan. 16, 2026, letters to you,” supervisor Anula Courtis wrote in a letter to the Town of Ulster Planning Board.
Town of Ulster supervisor James Quigley attributed the lack of communication to a large turnover of the Planning Board. In recent months, Chair Rory Lee’s term expired, followed by two regular board seats and two alternates that were not filled until the Jan. 22 Ulster Town Board meeting. Beyond that explanation, Quigley had no comment.
“I do not speak for the Planning Board,” Quigley said.
He believes the matter might be taken up at the Ulster Planning Board’s Feb. 10 meeting.
Stop Zena Development member Lisa Bonk pointed out some inconsistencies.
“We’ll start with: ‘They want to work with us, but if they don’t get their way, they’re going to sell to other developers,’” Bonk said.
“They want to help fill the housing shortage by building million-dollar homes. In submissions to Ulster and Woodstock, Zena Development stated that some lots could be used for duplexes. However, in the press, Eddie [Greenberg] has mentioned that they have no intention of building duplexes. Which is it going to be?”
Bonk criticized the developers for their plan to mitigate environmental impacts by installing culverts for amphibian crossings.
“That’s great, but last time I checked, they couldn’t read, so how do they find out where the culverts are?” Bonk said.
Donna Albright, a member of Woodstock Fire Company 4 in Zena, said the fire department currently has no responsibility for the development. The developers would have to ask for a protection district, and if approved, Company 4 would respond. But that doesn’t mitigate the problem of an aging volunteer force.
“We have approximately 20 members who respond to calls. A few of them are interior firefighters, the ones that can actually go into the buildings and fight the fire,” Albright said. “Everyone else is either an exterior firefighter that does ladders and hoses and things like that, or they’re fire police. Also, the majority of our members are 50 years old and older. We are not able to bring in the young people the way we used to.”
Stop Zena Development co-chair Zoe Keller said the subdivision does nothing to benefit Woodstock.
“I am here because Zena Development is a lose-lose situation for Woodstock. Zena Development demands that we irreparably damage our critical environmental area for housing that does nothing to address our urgent housing shortage,” Keller said.
She pointed out the incomplete environmental review.
“Zena Development hired LaBella to prepare an environmental report that was submitted to the Woodstock Planning Board in 2024. It wasn’t until neighbors complained in 2025 that LaBella admitted that this report only included data for the land in Ulster, where the subdivision would be built,” she said.
Zena Development rebutted accusations lodged against them by Stop Zena Development, both at a recent neighborhood meeting and at the Town Board.
In response to accusations they have been cozy with the Ulster Planning Board, they said this in a statement:
“Since purchasing the property, Zena has spent millions in consultants — environmental and habitat studies, traffic analyses, civil engineering fees, and legal counsel amounting to several hundred pages of submission documents, much of it at the request of both towns and well beyond what is required under code,” they responded.
“At no point has the team cut corners or declined a request from either municipality. Given that this process is now in its third year, it is difficult to reconcile the idea of receiving preferential treatment considering the time, cost, and level of scrutiny involved to date.”
But Keller said they knew what they were getting into when they purchased the property.
“Presumably, they knew from their prior professional experiences and from the overwhelming opposition that they saw from the Woodstock community that the process of building on this property would be long, complex and expensive, if possible at all. It is unfortunate for all involved that they did not think through this purchase more thoroughly,” Keller said.
Keller said she can back up the “coziness” by the frequency with which Zena Development has been added to the Town of Ulster Planning Board agenda less than 24 hours in advance; Ulster’s sudden shift to seek lead agency despite earlier statements that it would seek joint lead agency with Woodstock; Ulster’s failure to provide documents 24 hours prior to meetings; failure to hold a public hearing; and failure of Ulster Planning Board members to ask thorough questions, among other examples.
The developers say they have proposed solutions intended to directly address concerns raised by Eastwoods Drive resident Tana O’Sullivan about the width and construction standards of the road.
“The muddy conditions on Eastwoods Drive can be largely attributed to damaged culverts up and down the road. Zena is proposing to repair and replace these damaged culverts to improve stormwater flow,” the developers said.
“A review of existing town roads shows many examples of 20-foot width, adjacent to wetland buffers, with no documented issues from local emergency services. The proposed road configuration is compliant with applicable standards at 20 feet and limits the impact into the wetland buffers.”
But O’Sullivan disagrees.
“The mud comes from snow and rain landing on the dirt in the road and us driving through it. The mud gets worse the heavier the vehicle. The mud does not come from culverts a foot or two below the road seeping dirt and water upwards,” she said. “State fire code is a 26-foot-wide road. Period. As for the road being safer, it seems indisputable to me that waiving multiple road requirements and adding a massive amount of traffic on this road makes us less safe than we are now. Culverts and special grass seed do not make us safer and the road design features that would make us safer are requested to be waived.”
Planners sought for zoning changes
The Town Board unanimously approved Courtis to investigate land use planners to advise on zoning changes in compliance with the 2018 Comprehensive Plan that prioritizes housing, environment and natural resources.
The Housing Oversight Task Force has recommended a series of zoning changes that were designed to encourage more affordable housing, but the public reception was lukewarm at best.
“I think that the approach that was handled in the past was not a very good approach for ramming things down people’s throats. So something that we’re going to do a little bit differently is we’re going to look at planners … and we’re going to select a planner, and we’re going to look at specifically environmental protections and affordable housing in smaller bits and bytes, and we’re going to have it put in plain English in front of people in the form of a public hearing, so that the public knows exactly what they like and what they don’t like,” Courtis said.
“I think that the last time that folks have done a tremendous job and spent years of their life, but it was so big and it was so convoluted that it was very hard to understand. And so we’re going to learn from that lesson, and we’re going to do things a little bit different moving forward.”
Courtis said their goal is not to throw out the years of work by volunteers, but rather to look at what has been done, see what works and what doesn’t work.
Getting creative with the arts
Deputy supervisor Daniel Gallant has proposed four initiatives to support arts activity in the town.
“We are fortunate enough in Woodstock to have an extraordinary concentration of working artists who live among us — internationally celebrated writers, filmmakers, musicians, visual artists, dancers, poets and theater makers, serious practitioners of the arts who have chosen to make their lives here in Woodstock. But we face a paradox. Despite this wealth of talent, despite our historic role as a colony of the artists, and the creative legacy that is associated with this town, many Woodstock artists work in isolation, without support or recognition.”
Gallant said some performance venues are dark too many nights of the year, and some arts organizations lack the infrastructure and support they need.
Gallant proposed an arts calendar, newsletter and communications hub to be featured on the town website, social media and in printed copies available at restaurants, bars and shops.
The publication will include event listings, features about artists, promote available studio rentals, performance slots, discount tickets and volunteer organizations.
It will also “demystify” the booking process for local venues.
An annual Woodstock Arts Festival is proposed, comprising a two-weekend celebration featuring music, poetry, theater performances and studio tours, film screenings, literary readings, spoken word and dance performances.
A Woodstock Arts series including monthly events would keep momentum throughout the year.
Professional development and skills training will include a lecture and workshop series on grant writing, marketing, contract negotiation, budgeting and other practices.
No gas, all brakes
The Woodstock Planning Board denied the site plan for a six-pump gas station and convenience store at the site of a derelict garage across from Stewart’s, citing traffic safety concerns.
The site once served as a single-pump station and garage, owned decades ago by Woodstock Town Justice Rudi Baumgarten. The pump was removed long ago, and all that remains is a derelict building.
The Planning Board cited the proposed direct exit onto and entry from Route 28 as a major reason for the denial, especially given that the site is at the bottom of a hill at a potentially dangerous intersection. The board concurred with its traffic consultant that limiting Route 28 access to a right-turn exit to southbound traffic would be safer. Entering the site from northbound Route 28 would be safer via Basin Road, the board recommended.
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