After the SEQRA Public Hearing cut-off date of Mar 27, 5pm, CECNY/KARC representing Six Senses/IHG flooded Clinton’s Planning Board with 1,000’s of additional pages, including their own summary of public feedback. They excluded 200+ local residents who signed our petition for a SEQRA Positive Declaration, while including all those who submitted form-letters distributed by Six Senses and/or allies. They also excluded data about the municipalities of responders or associations to the project or local business interests, giving equal weight to the Beacon real estate broker and the Clinton neighbor impacted by environmental concerns. They also failed to differentiate feedback from broader citizen groups like Scenic Hudson, Sierra Club, and CSHV’s legal filings and environmental consultant reports.
Upon learning of this, CSHV compiled all citizen feedback including public hearing speakers, personal letters, Neg-Dec form letters, and Pos-Dec petition responders, and identified the municipality for each responder using public records. The results were remarkably different from what CECNY/KARC portrayed. Since the Clinton Board, as SEQRA “Lead Agency”, represents both Clinton and Hyde Park citizens, it is important to note that an overwhelming 85% of respondents from Clinton and Hyde Park requested a Positive Declaration, for a SEQRA Environmental Impact Statement and review.
CSHV sent the following letter and attachments to the Clinton Planning Board. While the Planning Board received unreacted versions of these attachments, we provide redacted versions with Personally Identifiable Information (PII) such as addresses and business/family/friends/real estate associations redacted. (Contact us directly for further information.)
From: Common Senses HV <commonsenseshv@gmail.com>Subject: SEQRA Declaration submissions after cut-offDate: April 14, 2026 at 6:22:10 PM EDTTo: Paul Thomas <redacted>, Arlene Campbell for Clinton Planning Board <redacted>
Dear Chairman Thomas & Members of the Clinton Planning Board:
Despite the clear cutoff of 5 pm, March 27, 2026 for submission of SEQRA Public comments, CECNY, through its agents and counsel, has continued to submit extensive written materials through early April 2026.
One such submission was a highly misleading and inaccurate characterization of community input (see CECNY March 30th Submission, Exhibit D, Table of Public Comments).
Under these circumstances, and in the interests of fairness and ensuring the Planning Board has an accurate grasp of the entire record, we submit the following:
The record shows 85% of Clinton & Hyde Park respondents (155 of 183) requested a POSITIVE DECLARATION. These are the residents from the two municipalities where the project is located, that the Clinton Planning Board is responsible to as “Lead Agency“, and who live in the towns impacted by the project’s environmental concerns.
The facts also show that the vast majority of support for a Negative Declaration was from residents of other towns and was generally from business and personal interests affiliated or associated with CECNY/Six Senses and its real estate broker, Wendy Maitland (who represented both the buyer and the seller of the property in 2022). These include family, friends, real estate colleagues, Rhinebeck businesses and Rhinebeck Rotary members who submitted form letters requesting that the Clinton Planning Board NOT undertake a structured SEQRA Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and review. We have also attached a separate list of Neg-Dec commenters and their known associations with Six Senses and the organizations it has sponsored or supported, including Maitland Real Estate, the Rhinebeck Area Chamber of Commerce and Rhinebeck Rotary Club.
Despite CECNY’s efforts to convince the Planning Board there are no environmental impacts worthy of review, the facts also show that a significant majority (67%) of the total public commenters (208 of 309) requested a POSITIVE DECLARATION for a full Environmental Impact Statement and consideration of alternatives as required under NY State law.
The Planning Board should note in particular the following:
- CECNY’s Exhibit D summary completely omitted the 200+ community resident signatures on the CSHV petition urging a Positive Declaration, yet included the “Neg-Dec” form-letter submissions collected by CECNY and its affiliated associates. Skewing the data by omitting relevant facts demands a response.
- To ensure the Planning Board can easily understand the full record, we have consolidated the public submissions from all sources (Public Hearing speakers, Personal Letters, CECNY “Neg-Dec” Form Letters, and CSHV’s “Positive Declaration” Petition) and sorted those by municipality and position (see Chart attached). When a party’s position was unclear (e.g., simply supporting the project without mention of how to address environmental concerns), we nonetheless identified these as “Neg-Dec” requests. We believe we’ve accurately captured all public commenters, and done our best to fully verify.
- We removed five (5) Public Comment respondents from these metrics, since each speaks for a much broader citizen base, and therefore should be considered separately, given their more substantive statements. They are:
- Scenic Hudson – Johnathan Clark Esq.
- Sierra Club – Sarah Kennedy spoke for Tom Helling at the Public Hearing. Tom Helling submitted a letter on behalf of Sierra Club’s Mid-Hudson Region’s 2500+ members (part of the 46,000+ NY members in the Atlantic Chapter), which can be found under his name.
- CSHV’s attorneys – Warren Replansky, Esq. & William Demarest III, Esq. (Law Offices of Rupp Pfalzgraf)
- CSHV’s environmental consultant – Paul Rubin of HydroQuest
Further, we note that the March 30 KARC Planning Letter, Exhibit D1 – Responses to Public Comments, also presents a distorted and incomplete depiction of the record. While it purports to respond to the points made or issues raised in the individual public comment letters, the CECNY/KARC responses are generally dismissive and irrelevant, as well as often insulting to the public who has raised serious concerns about the community where they live. We believe the Planning Board can and will note this transparent effort to misrepresent the record; we raise it here solely to highlight this serious effort to undermine the public.
We appreciate your efforts, and are happy to address any questions regarding this information.
Thank you,
Your Common Senses Hudson Valley Neighbors
Attachments: