TOWN OF WALLKILL – Businesses in New York are behind the eight ball in terms of economic development given all of the red tape for approvals and the high cost of doing business, Orange County Partnership President Maureen Halahan told a packed house of business leaders at a breakfast meeting in the Town of Wallkill on Thursday.
Despite that, she said companies want to locate in Orange County, and that goes for Medline, which wants to build a 1.3-million square foot distribution center in the Town of Montgomery, and the new owners of the Danskammer power plant in the Town of Newburgh.
Halahan tried to debunk what she said were misconceptions about development incentives including that payments-in-lieu-of-taxes place a financial burden on local residents, who would have to pick up the different.
“In fact, it is the opposite. From day one the payroll that the companies create with the workers that they hire has a multiplier throughout the community that is far greater than the tax incentives offered through the life of the PILOT,” she said. “What would Neelytown Road look like without Home Depot, McKesson, Do It Best, Cardinal Health, New England Motor Freight, UPS and FedEx, just to name a few. Every one of them received a PILOT.”
Eric Gerstein of Metline said his company, which wants to move from Wawayanda to a new facility in Montgomery triple the size, said despite the challenges to business development in New York they are committed to locating here.
Danskammer President William Reid said the new $500 million gas-powered electric generating plant in the Town of Newburgh will be better for the environment as a whole since it will not be cooled with Hudson River water as is the current facility.
He acknowledged there is opposition to the plant.
“Unfortunately, for many of the opposition the answer is always ‘no’,” Reid said. “’No’ is not a policy. ‘No’ is not a bridge to the future. ‘No’ does not help economic development. We all have to work together,” Reid said.
Both the Danskammer and Medline projects require approvals from government agencies to proceed.
