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| May 05, 2024 |
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General News: New Kayak Business May Operate at Park
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| Mountain Valley Guides hopes to be open for business in the Storm King Theatre building in April. |
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| The company has been issued a certificate of occupancy to sell kayaks and ice cream at the re-named Paddles and Scoops ice cream stand. |
March 09, 2010
The new kayak business run by Mountain Valley Guides won approval Monday night to use Donahue Memorial Park in Cornwall-on-Hudson as the launch site for its kayaking tours. The board of trustees approved the commercial permit for the outfitters to operate tours along with Storm King Adventure Tours, its former partner.
Before the vote, some of the trustees said they were concerned that two tour groups would generate too much activity at the riverfront when they launch kayak tours at the same time to take advantage of the tides. Trustee Mark Edsall said he thought the park may be commercialized to the detriment of residents and trustee Rick Gioia noted that he has seen a lot of traffic during kayak launch time with only one tour group but later added that the permission could be amended later if a problem arose.
Kayak Company’s Certificate of Occupancy Questioned
After the waterfront permit was granted, other members of the public stood to ask why the Mountain Valley Guides had received a certificate of occupancy to operate from an ice cream stand in the village square without planning board approval. Last month, the village building inspector, Bruce Yancewicz, approved the new business, saying that he had the power to do that without planning board approval. (See story.)
Planning board chairman Jeffrey Small spoke at Monday’s board meeting, saying that he believed that the project should come before the planning board. “Traffic patterns are different,” Small said, “kayak trailers are inherently different than people walking up to buy ice cream.” Cherry Avenue resident Neil Drislane also spoke, arguing that he is concerned about traffic and safety on the streets and that he deserved the chance to be heard at a public hearing.
Ray Yannone who owns the building with the ice cream stand, read a lengthy letter defending the certificate of occupancy and denying there was anything wrong with the process.
Attorney: Issue May Be Appealed
Village attorney Jeffrey Scully advised that if people want to challenge the certificate of occupancy issued by the building inspector they could appeal that decision to the zoning board. On Tuesday, Yancewicz insisted that he would not revoke his decision to issue the certificate of occupancy.
Meanwhile, Bill Garrison questioned how his kayak business got to be the focus of so much negative attention, noting the longer the debate went on, the harder it would be for him to operate as planned.
Comments:
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Bill, apparently you have stuck your hand into the middle of a dogfight.
posted by Kate Benson on 03/10/10 at 6:47 PM
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