Dear Supporters,

Happy holidays!! Thank you for taking a few minutes to get caught up on ROSA’s activities. When you get together this holiday season with your friends and neighbors please share this information with them and suggest they become ROSA supporters too.

1. The Patrick Fight: Because of our success in 2013 in engaging the agencies to resolve the wetland delineation issue before issuing permits, 2014 included a stay at the Supreme Court level and the applicant finally sought the wetland determination that it should have done back in 2009.  The developer submitted their application for a ACOE Jurisdictional Determination in June and just received their approval last week on December 5th. While we are waiting for our FOIA request to be processed for the final paperwork, we do have copies of all the developers submissions. By our calculations the prior wetland acreage on the site was previously reported to be 23.85 acres and the developers revised maps show wetlands of 35.35 acres. (Wow!) Some of these wetlands had buildings, playgrounds, parking and drainage basins on the approved plans. The developer has confirmed his intent to submit new plans. These plans do not moot many of the issues raised in prior litigation which we are in the midst of appealing. We expect things to ramp up with a new application very quickly.ROSA research uncovered two foreclosure notices on the property which comprise main portions of the site. ROSA will continue to track the foreclosure activities and keep our followers informed.
   
2. Lawsuits against the Town of Ramapo: At this point ROSA is involved in 3 primary lawsuits opposing the Planning Board approvals and is providing support other lawyers in 10 other related lawsuits challenging the Town and Planning Board approvals.  2013 was an expensive year with the need to produce the Appellate record for two cases. We will need to spend about $10,000 in January to produce the Appellate record for the 2013 decision. We have a separate posting to cover details on the current status of the lawsuits so if you want more details go here.
   
3. Desalination Plant: ROSA is part of the Rockland Water Coalition that successfully prevented the approval of the desal plant this year. The primary fight that the coalition has been engaged in has been against the United Water Desalination Plant that proposed to be located in Haverstraw to pull water from the Hudson River. The coalitions grassroots efforts paid off with the PSC November 17th decision. The effort now is to work with the Rockland County Water Task Force to develop a county wide consolidated approach for water management and this effort is now underway. Deb Munitz attended two of the committee meetings and this week’s total task force meeting.
   
4. Comprehensive Plan Amendment for Pascack Ridge: Deb Munitz and other ROSA volunteers attended the November 12th and December 10th public hearings for the Town of Comprehensive Plan Amendment that would allow for a change in zoning from R-15 to MR-12 in a small undeveloped section of the Town of Ramapo that would cause the loss of about 5-6000 mature trees, would be on steep slopes and be nestled among the wetlands and floodplains of along the Pascack river.  Although the Town of Ramapo has started the public hearing process the suggested plans for the properties keeps changing. As of last night the projection is for up to 295 units with a probably of only 250 units on 28.5 acres.The Town of Ramapo Comprehensive Plan is meant to balance development to meet the needs of all residents of the Town of Ramapo. Hundreds of residents came out both evening to voice opposition to this project that was *disapproved* by the Rockland County planning department. The EAF Form 2 is expected to be voted on at next week’s regularly scheduled board meeting on Dec. 18th and the next Public Hearing will be in January (probably the 8th or 16th). Stay tuned for more updates as we organize the paperwork.
   
5. End of 2014 Appeal: The year is coming to an end. Please take a look at your ROSA contributions for 2014 as well as your overall budget for tax deductible contributions. We continue to need your support and the best way that you can say thank you to ROSA for all the hard work and successes to date is to make a year end contribution and sign up for smaller regular monthly contributions for 2015.Every minute we spend fundraising is a minute we don’t have to pursue the legal work and advocacy work that we have been doing (as well as having a personal life of course!). We started ROSA4Rockland because we know that this development is so large that – if poorly done – it will put our community at risk; as less people want to invest in our area and more want to leave due to this type of development we each stand lose tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of value in our homes. If we can work with the town, the agencies and even the developer to down size projects like these and protect our view sheds, our water supply, our main traffic corridors and protect the public health and safety, our investments now will translate to higher home values in the years to come. Things can go either way; this is a mission that you all should support as much as you can.
   
6. Follow ROSA on Facebook: We surpassed the 600 mark on our Facebook page this year but we want to hit 1,000 in 2015. If you have a Facebook account please take a minute to “like” our page and to “get notifications”. We don’t post frequently on Facebook but it is a useful tool to get the word out quickly for last minute information on events, petitions or news.
   
7. Follow ROSA by Email: We don’t send out a lot of emails but if you want to stay tuned please sign up here for the ROSA4Rockland email list.
8. What to expect in 2015: ROSA is revving up for another high activity year fighting the crazy development plans for the Patrick Farm. Please continue to support us and follow us in 2015 when we expect the following:
   • January 2015: We expect to be reviewing new development plans based on corrected wetland delineations.
   • January-February 2015: We will be perfecting our appeal of the March 2013 Final Subdivision and Final Site Plan decisions.
   • All year – We will be engaging the ACOE, DEC, Rockland County Drainage and Rockland County Sewer agencies to make sure any permits are based on facts not fiction.
   • All year – We will be working on the various appeals.

We look forward to making in 2015 with your support.