submitted by StopUPS.org
In October of 2019 Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano announced that UPS would be building a logistics center at 555 Tuckahoe Rd. A former “light manufacturing” facility, it had most recently been the site of a small-scale Saks distribution center and POP Displays.
As these plans were slowly unveiled, it became clear that United Parcel Service is proposing a massive 24/7 truck terminal, refueling depot and distribution center in the middle of a residential neighborhood in northeast Yonkers. The proposed site is surrounded on three sides by approximately 2000 households. The proposal has been met with overwhelming resistance by the surrounding neighborhood, yet a petition with hundreds of signatures has not been acknowledged by the Planning Board.
The UPS proposal at 555 Tuckahoe Rd. requires site plan approval by the City of Yonkers Planning Board, an appointed body which does not allow for a public hearing on the UPS site plan application. Despite the Planning Board not yet granting their approval, construction at the site has been moving ahead at a feverish pace.
Neighbors find there is an incompatibility with their neighborhood on many fronts that will lower property values, impact health and create impossible traffic. They created StopUPS.org to address their concerns, which include:
• UPS vehicles from the NY Metro area utilizing the site daily as a refueling facility for both gas and diesel UPS trucks, dispensing fuel from multiple massive 12,000-gallon storage tanks. This raised concerns about massive air pollution from vehicles, diesel and petroleum fuel odors, truck noise 24/7 and intrusive lighting throughout the night and the overall industrialization of a residential neighborhood;
• Hundreds of UPS vehicles utilizing the site 24/7 causing a traffic nightmare and safety issues on local roads, and the destruction of remaining green space on the property adjacent to residential houses which the property owner promised the City would never be destroyed.
A comparison to other nearby UPS locations with similar capabilities reveal that UPS nor any other logistics carrier have heavy industrial located in a residential neighborhood. In the NY Metro area in particular, UPS and similar carriers are located in industrial parks zoned for such activity. The zoning for the proposed center does not even allow for most of the activity proposed for the location.
“It’s not as if the neighbors are opposed to progress,” said Joel Sachs of Keane & Beane, PC, an attorney hired by neighbors. “Just a half-mile away is a FedEx with a massive operation in an Industrial Zone next to I-87, and it doesn’t have any refueling.”
“What does David P. Abney know that we don’t know?” asks Clare Gallagher, a neighbor, referring to the CEO of UPS. “Why did the work begin months before the proper site approval worked its way through the planning board?”
Neighbors have united by writing Planning Board members and expressing their opposition, but it continues to fall on deaf ears. Opponents of the site urge those who don’t want to see their property values decline, their health suffer or the sanctity of their neighborhood be ruined, to visit www.stopups.org, which includes points to include in letters to elected officials. A meeting between the neighbors and the developers failed to materialize because the developers chose to delay the meeting with a June 10 Planning Board meeting scheduled.
Concerned residents did not oppose the recently constructed FedEx site, also on Tuckahoe Road. However, to put it simply, to locate the kind of operations proposed by UPS at the 555 Tuckahoe Road site, in the middle of a residential neighborhood, is ABSURD! The Yonkers Planning Board has yet to even demand that an Environmental Impact Study be performed, potentially robbing the neighborhood of their rights under the law and avoding a fair study of their concerns!
The Yonkers Planning Board is even allowing the site to be used as a refueling depot, a non-listed use! The Yonkers Planning Board is considering allowing above ground fuel storage even though such storage in NOT permitted in the Yonkers city code!
