By Jared Castaneda
Developers of the Food Bank of Hudson Valley, a project being built at 416 Route 574 in Montgomery, appeared at the Montgomery Township Planning Board meeting on July 31 to propose additional truck parking for the facility, an addition that was overlooked in the earlier phases of the project.
Marcia Jacobowitz, project manager for the food bank, explained that as the facility was being developed, she and her team realized there was not enough parking on site for food delivery trucks. She proposed expanding the facility’s rear parking lot by a quarter acre to accommodate four semi-trucks and eight box trucks, giving those vehicles more room to enter the site, unload food and exit.
“We’re here because we have a limited space and we need room for the trucks that deliver the food,” Jacobowitz said. “As time goes on and the amount of food that needs to be moved, which is 20 million pounds for our operation, we need to have some trucks that can park there so the food can be delivered and unloaded.”
“To achieve this and allow for easier entry and exit to the property, we would need about a quarter of an acre of land at the back,” she continued. “This will simply expand the parking space at the back.”
Jacobowitz stressed that this expansion will not have a significant impact on the project, nor will it lead to an increase in truck traffic in the area. She estimated that five to six trucks would deliver food to the facility each week.
“It doesn’t change the elevations, the location of the building or the infrastructure other than there are a few extra curbs in the back. It doesn’t change the usability or the need for additional services other than expanding the paving,” Jacobowitz said. “We’re not putting more trucks, we just didn’t have room to park them to begin with.”
Planning Board Chair Amy Frisbie used this opportunity to list several comments that Lanc & Tully, the village’s engineering firm, had provided to the board regarding the project plans. First, she pointed to the project’s environmental impact assessment form, filed in February 2023, which only mentioned four trucks delivering groceries per week, not five to six. She urged the applicant to review the extension and consider how it might impact truck traffic.
“The EAF provided in February 2023 only recorded four trucks per week,” Frisbie said. “The applicant should discuss the need for additional truck parking and the impact on site operations.”
