Foes of Waddington housing plan get enough support for referendum
by James Schlett, Times Staff Writer
WADDINGTON - A petition protesting town officials' decision to sell Leishman Point
property for residential use will allow residents to resolve the year-old development
debate with a November referendum.
Less than two weeks after the town board unanimously voted to let houses
be built at the 45-acre peninsula two miles west of downtown Waddington, a grassroots
group has acquired enough signatures to challenge the July 14 resolution.
Needing 38 signatures, or 5 percent of the total number of town residents who voted for
governor last year, to authorize the referendum, the Waddington Redevelopment Association
hopes the vote will allow more time to determine how best to develop the land recently
obtained from the New York Power Authority.
Since unveiling the petition Thursday, the group has attained more than the 38 signatures
and it will present them to the board at its Aug. 11 meeting. "We'll have our
signatures by then, and I'm sure they'll be expecting it," said Mark Scott, a member
of the Waddington Redevelopment Association.
Since NYPA ceded 22 acres of the waterfront property to the town in January 2002, board
officials and the Waddington Redevelopment Association have feuded over the land's fate.
The group is calling for multiple uses for the property, such as a hotel/convention
center, RV park and condominiums, while the town favors a low-risk housing project.
The board's resolution allowed for a permissive referendum to challenge the action.
"That way you would have a voice from the community. It wouldn't be just a few having
a say in it," said board member Shirley Robinson.
If the proposal is rejected, the Waddington Redevelopment Association will demand that the
town develop a community planning process to decide how it should use all of the property
NYPA ceded over as part of its FDR-St. Lawrence 50-year re-licencing deal.
The lands deeded by NYPA include 550 acres on Whitehouse Bay, a peninsula near Iroquois
Dam.
If a referendum upholds the residential housing decision, the group may challenge the
resolution with a lawsuit or let it stand as it is, said Thomas J. Snider, a member of the
Waddington Redevelopment Association.
A Potsdam State University College phone survey in June asking residents if they would
support the residential project found that 285 people, or 52.3 percent of the 545
surveyed, favored houses at Leishman Point.
The grassroots group said the study was biased since it only asked residents about the
project favored by the town. "No one wants a referendum to be biased in its
language or misleading in its language," Mr. Snider said.
The group hopes to work with town officials on how the resolution for the referendum is
phrased.
First published: Tuesday, July 29, 2003
Watertown Daily Times
Used with permission