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'Gunks development proposal a travesty
Letters to the editor
Poughkeepsie Journal, March 4, 2003

The huge gated housing project proposed for 2,660 fragile acres on the Shawangunk Ridge would be bad for our towns and our mountain.

Previous generations -- the Esopus and Lenape tribes, the huckleberry pickers, woodsmen and hikers -- left no footprint there. The 349 McMansions planned for construction (which developer Chaffin/Light claims will be invisible and prophesy will be bought by childless environmentalists who will only be around on weekends) would, in contrast, assault our sense, injure our souls, deface the slope and mock our distinctly ungated rural communities, for all generations to come.

The Awosting Reserve parcel, owned by John Atwater Bradley, is privately held and inaccessible to the public. Located in the center of Shawangunk Ridge, it is nonetheless crucial to viewshed and wildlife corridors and integral to the thump of joy a proximate wilderness imparts to the over-civilized soul.

Apparently, Mr. Bradley wasn't reserving Awosting Reserve for its peerless natural attributes but merely as a monetary commodity of prosaic barter. Shame on him for the pretense of his ''stewardship.''

Shame on Chaffin/Light for its eagerness to erect a principality in our
midst. Shame on us all if we allow it to happen.

J. Hershberger, Pine Bush