|
|
In-Depth Information
|
 “Illegal,
Unjust, and Irresponsible” - by Carol W. LaGrasse (PRFA,
January 17, 2006)
DEC 2005 Draft Open Space Plan fails to reveal full extent
and impact of its land acquisition plans, violates the principles
of environmental justice and good government.
|
- “Another
Snitch System Institutionalized” - By Carol W. LaGrasse
(PRFA January 23, 2005)
With the successful settlement of a lawsuit by an environmental
group, the Residents Committee to Protect the Adirondacks, citizen
informants can not efficiently report violations on the six-million
acre Adirondack Forest Preserve. New York State’s
trend toward environmental snitch systems is raising hackles
here and there.
|
- “State
Senator John Bonacic Proposes Upper Delaware Greenway”
- PRFA, Summer 2004
Sen. John J. Bonacic (Rep., New Paltz) is proposing an Upper
Delaware Greenway modeled after the State’s Hudson
River Greenway. The Independent Landowners Association, Long
Eddy, whose president is Noel van Swol, is opposing the carrot-and-stick
regional land use control scheme.
|
- “Wasting Water”-
By Carol W. LaGrasse (PRFA, November 1, 2003)
New York City apartments are still not metered, and extreme
waste results. City taxpayers and upstate property owners should
be aroused, considering the cost of handling the water and the
one and one-half centuries of hardship imposed on property owners
in the Catskill Mountains and Putnam County.
|
- Terrorism - The New Excuse to Deny a Freedom of Information
Law Request
The New York City Department of Environmental Protection
lands bureau denied PRFA’s request for records of
newly issued or imposed revocable access permits for private
landowners who must pass through City-owned lands to reach their
property in the New York City watershed. See the following exchange
of letters:
- 1. Reply
from Marilyn Shanahan, New York City DEP, to Carol W. LaGrasse,
PRFA., November 1, 2002.
- 2. FOIL
request from Carol W. LaGrasse, PRFA, to Marilyn Shanahan, New
York City DEP, Office of Water Supply Lands, October 21, 2002
|
- “Rural
New York” - by Evelyn M. Rikard, Letter to the Editor
published in Windham Times, January 3, 2002. (Reprinted by permission
of Evelyn M. Rikard)
The irony and injustice of the State’s and the
City’s treatment of New York City Watershed property
owners.
|
- February 2001:
New York City Watershed—PRFA’s
Warnings Are Coming True
Five years after PRFA published its analysis of the momentous
Watershed Agreement, our warnings are coming true. The City’s
acquisitions of prime land are making neighboring property owners
nervous. Local building permits are obstructed while the City
exerts its overarching power to review septic system permit applications.
|
|
|
- “DEP Threat to
Access to Private Property across New York City Water Supply
Lands” — By Carol W. LaGrasse
(PRFA, October 25, 2002)
For seven months, the New York City Department of Environmental
Protection has been stonewalling PRFA’s Freedom of
Information Law (FOIL) quest to find out the extent of the DEP’s
pressure on landowners to convert legitimate access rights across
City Watershed lands to revocable access permits.
|
|
|
- “Pataki’s
Good-bye Kiss,” by Carol W. LaGrasse, Op Ed
(Jan.1998). Published with title “As time goes on, governor
grows more ‘green’,” in Capitol District Business
Review (Albany, Jan. 19, 1998), and other papers
in New York State and elsewhere.
The Op Ed points out the Pataki Administration’s
watershed negotiations to the detriment of Catskill landowners.
|
 “Courage Takes All—Big
City Backed Down for Brave Carmel Couple” - by Carol W. LaGrasse
(PRFA, April, 1998)
The entire coalition of Watershed Towns capitulated, but one
home-owning couple stood their ground and won! This story-press
release tells how Tai and Adele Aguirre resisted the New York
City enforcement action, including severe fines, for a small
addition to their home in Carmel in Putnam County.
|
- “New York
City Watershed Rules” — Adele Aguirre, Carmel,
N.Y., from Proceedings of the Third Annual New York Conference
on Private Property Rights (PRFA 1998)
The personal story of how Tai and Adele Aguirre endured the
harassment of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection
(DEP) walking on their property, staring through their windows,
bringing a lawsuit to their door “with armbands and
everything, guns,” coming back to test their septic
system every day but finding nothing wrong, and the rescue of
the Aguirres by Atlantic Legal Foundation.
|
|
|
- “An Overview—The
Brave, Hopeful Watershed Settlement” - by Carol W. LaGrasse,
New York Property Rights Clearinghouse, Vol. 2, No. 3
(PRFA, Oct. 1995)
This article compares the effusiveness of leading spokespeople
for all sides at the negotiating table with the realities of
the threats to private property rights and to property ownership
that are key features of the actual preliminary legal document
of the watershed accord that had just been negotiated.
|
- “The Government
Squeeze on Private Property—The Stone Age of Government”
- Carol W. LaGrasse, excerpted fro Positions on
Property, Vol. 1, No. 1 (PRFA, March 1994).
This publication exposed for the first time the multitude
of overlapping environmental land-use controls and acquisition
plans that are being put in place in New York State. Before PRFA
began publishing Position on Property, the multitude of pre-zoning
and pre-acquisition land designations was largely overlooked.
|
|
