It's back to the drawing board for one town in Rockland County regarding how to transform a chunk of town-owned land.
Almost 4,000 Stony Point residents voted no to Proposition 2 this election -- a nearly 70% vote to not authorize the sale of 31 acres of town-owned land of the former Letchworth property to a developer.
"I think it showed that the community is paying attention and that they want to be involved in what the future of the property is," says Pete Reilly, of Tomkins Cove. Reilly, the head of the Stony Point Democrats, is one of them.
"For me, it was too big for a small town," he adds.
Most recently, the town had a nonbinding agreement with Hudson Park Group LLC, which envisioned hundreds of units of housing among other things for the area.
Reilly and others say they would like a comprehensive plan that involves the entire community to decide what the site will become.
"It's an asset that we should really think hard about and plan together in order to make sure that we have buy-in from the stakeholders as we go forward, so we never have to go through one of these referendums again," Reilly says.
This is the second time Stony Point residents voted down selling the property in just as many years.
"We're going to move slow," says Stony Point Supervisor Jim Monaghan in regard to what is happening now that the residents voted no.
Monaghan says residents have told him they would like there to be stores, a hotel or even a museum. But the decades-old property needs repairs.
"The challenges have been, due to the costs to remediate the site, we haven't been able to attract a retailer or development. It's something we're going to continue to work on, move slowly and explore all the options," Monaghan says.