I spent some time attending public meetings last year to better understand the Broome Tech Park proposal. Led by the Broome County IDA / The Agency, a quasi-governmental entity empowered to provide tax breaks to businesses if job creation can be demonstrated, Broome Tech Park has been a relatively swift collection of acreage across the Towns of Union and Maine. The 500 acre land is settled off of Airport Road, and is site to what was once an apple orchard, and then property held in case fracking was to happen in the Southern Tier.
The public meetings were highly attended by people against the proposal, stating that it was an insider between a former county employee’s land holdings and the use of taxpayer money to bail them out of their land investment. Additionally, the neighbors of this parcel were delivered a letter which was essentially a notice of potential eminent domain, using language that essentially stated “sell us your land, or else we will have to escalate.” The linked page shares that the IDA is aware of its ability to use eminent domain “if necessary.”
The project is in its dream stage, as in the plans themselves are not clear. The IDA claims that this site will be a shovel-ready investment opportunity for large manufacturers to come save the community from low-paying jobs. The proposal also mentions things about bus stops, housing, and integration of nature trails into the campus. Because the potential developers are secret, the plan itself remains elusive to the community’s imagination except to increase the feeling that government is wasting our taxpayer dollars to enrich a few in-the-know. Additionally, the Town of Maine, one of the municipalities that include the parcel, tried to utilize Article 78 to argue that the plan could not go forward because the town Supervisor had signed a letter of support without the board’s permission. The IDA was pleased to announce that the environmental review is moving forward regardless because of a final court decision.
While the next public hearing has not been scheduled yet, it will be interesting to see the results of their final environmental assessment. Semiconductor manufacturing has a large environmental impact, and while an environmental study only needs to show that impacts are considered and mitigation options may be taken, it will no doubt necessitate large amounts of fresh water and deforestation of almost 600 acres of land in Broome County if a company does happen to decide to call Tech Park home. With all of the vacant parking lots, small businesses struggling, global warming, and growing water scarcity, this project seems to propose benefiting a small proportion of residents (which, by the way, most will likely not be working here depending on the skills and expertise needed in semiconductor manufacturing, and construction jobs are temporary, and so threaten to make housing costs rise especially for renters).
In the meantime, the IDA was recently called out by the NYS Authorities Budget Office (ABO) for unauthorized spending of over $40,000 of taxpayer money. The Agency claims that the report was unfair and unjustified. I don’t know any other organization that could claim an audit’s results were unsubstantiated. You can check out the report yourself here.