Month: August 2025

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SOLO first presentation to the Saugerties Planning Board AND documents from the Public File

On Tuesday August 19th, SOLO Holidays made the first formal presentation to the Saugerties Planning Board of their plans for a major subdivision at Cottontail Lane.

The developer was represented by Khattar Elmassalemah of Preatorious and Conrad Engineers. Also present was Kakha (Kai) Kokhreidze, from SOLO.

The Board asked few questions, it being so early in the process. There were comments that this property was well known to the Board, and that this appeared to be a “better” proposal than previous ones. The consultant from Town planners/consultants NPV mentioned a few points from her initial memo (linked below). These mostly focused on conservation status. There was mention of Deed Restrictions. Given the volume of work to be done, the engineer suggested that they would likely not be in front of the Board again at the September 2025 meeting.

We have two new documents in the Public File:

First is the General Subdivision Application. This includes the short-form EAF (Environmental Assessment form). Also included here are various notifications. One allows Praetorious and Conrad to make representations and correspondences to the Board on behalf of the developer. Another is from the current land owner (KOA), allowing SOLO to proceed on their behalf (the latter is a formality, required because they have not yet closed on the sale). You can find the General Subdivision Application Form and Short-Form EAF here, and, possibly, embedded below:
2025-08-05-SOLOHS-COTTONTAIL-LANE-FULL-APPLICATION-AND-Short-Form-EAF-8-5-2025
The second document contains the initial review comments provided by the Planning Board consultant, Adriana Beltrani, from Town Planners Nelson, Pope, Voorhees. The consultant lays out various initial observations and makes one or two specific suggestions about this particular parcel of land. General comments are also made about the planning process and the need to communicate soon with as many concerned agencies as possible. You can find the NPV initial review comments here, and, possibly, embedded below:
2025-08-15-NPV Review Memo - 8-15-25 - Solohs Subdivision

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New activity on the South Peak land parcels – And a first appearance before the Saugerties Town Planning Board

A new developer is in contract to buy the lands and will make a preliminary proposal to the Saugerties Planning Board at the Tuesday August 19th 2025 meeting.

One of the developers met with some concerned residents in July. While the exchanges were cordial, many of the assembled company were surprised at the lack of information available. The developer did not yet have complete data from engineers and so was unable to answer some of the questions posed.

Discussion revolved around the “difficult” nature of the land, previous attempts at development, how to best deal with the unbuildable land, septic issues, well water issues, wildlife issues, restrictive covenants, conservation, and the like.

The developers (https://www.solohs.com/)are originally from Europe and have a US base in New Jersey. It appears that their main project to date has been in a gated community in Sleepy Hollow Lake NY. The website mostly uses stock photography and is relatively young, having first been registered in October 2023.

A related company, Solo Holidays LLC, is mentioned at least once on the website. This company appears to be the company of record on the preliminary site plans. They have appeared in front of the Town of Olive Planning Board with a light industrial project having to do with pre-manufactured small buildings. You can see minutes of that meeting here, and amended comments here

Solohs will appear before the Saugerties Town Planning Board on Tuesday August 19th. This is a “pre-hearing conference” for them to introduce their request for a major subdivision of 8 houses on the land. The Planning Board will ask questions, raise issues, and explain a path forward. The number and nature of the questions may be informative as the Board’s thinking about the application. This is not the formal Planning Board hearing and the public is not able to comment during the meeting. The public can certainly write to the Board at any time about any topic.

As of the writing of this post, the only document this website has been able to see (from our vacation) is a PDF kindly forwarded by a neighbor. You can see that here https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FJuhfBMClDCmAdRYPAhfciCwoufeU1tk/view?usp=sharing

And, possibly, embedded here:
Solohs DRAFT proposed site plan for South Peak - August 2025

The document is split into two pages. The first is the current situation, undeveloped. The second page shows the proposed development of 8 houses on varying plots of land.

A few initial observations:
1) At least one plot calls for a house to be built in a wetland buffer zone.
2) The road is not a loop. Perhaps the engineers and developers have already run it by the fire department, but cul-de-sacs tends to be frowned upon by the Saugerties Planning Board. The advantage to the developers here is that they have no need to construct a difficult road down to Route 212 and do not have to deal with the state for a curb cut to Rt. 212.
3) The draft proposal, necessarily, calls for some extremely long driveways. Assuming that they are to be paved, this increases runoff.
4) Many of the lots will contain major areas of wetlands. What will the Town require in terms of restrictions on future homeowners.
5) Some of the well sites on the draft are marked as “existing well”. We assume that these are the test wells drilled by previous developers. Can these really be reused for domestic water?

Surely neighbors and other members of the public will have further observations and questions.

We encourage anyone interested to come to the Saugerties Town Planning Board meeting on Tuesday August 19th at the Frank D Greco Senior Citizens’ Building on Market Street. The meeting starts at at 7:30pm, but there are several matters before the Board, thus it’s likely that the Solohs conference will not take place until well into the proceedings, possibly as late as8:30 or even later. The agenda for the meeting can be found here