Planning Board sets a November 4 hearing on a 71-acre timber harvest on Route 40 north of Melrose

The Planning Board will hold a public hearing Wednesday, November 4 at 7 p.m. at Town Hall, 290 Northline Drive, Melrose, on an application by Adam and Samantha Kocienski for a timber harvest permit on a parcel of about 71 acres on the west side of State Route 40, generally opposite 2024 State Route 40, about a mile and a half north of Route 67. The notice, dated October 22 and signed by Chairman Frank Alessandrini, was posted on the town site this week. The land, tax map number 12.-1-8.11, is in the Residential Agricultural zoning district, and the permit is required under Section V(M) of the town zoning law once a harvest reaches the size threshold set in the code.

What the board heard on October 7

The board took a first look at the plan at a pre-filing conference at its October 7 meeting. The applicant described the parcel, 72.5 acres on the tax rolls and about 71 by a recent survey, as flat, with no stream crossings or steep slopes, last logged about 30 years ago. A forester has reviewed the harvesting plan, and the surveyed boundary has been posted. The applicant said a forested wetland on the property will not be logged, and that he plans to build a house on the land and sees the harvest as cleaning up the woods for wildlife and a driveway rather than as a cash cut.

Board members asked for the forester’s plan on letterhead with a signature, asked about buffers along the property lines, and asked why one layer had been turned off on the DEC resource-mapper printout. The applicant still has to file an Environmental Assessment Form, so the State Environmental Quality Review will come with the hearing. Our summary of the October 7 meeting has the full discussion.

How to comment

In person at the hearing, or in writing to the Planning Board at Town Hall, 290 Northline Drive, Melrose, NY 12121, before November 4. At the town’s last timber harvest hearing, on the Briggs harvest off Sliter Road in July 2024, neighbors raised early-morning work and machinery noise, damage to the road, property boundaries, wildlife, and wetland and stream setbacks, and the board asked that applicant for water-quality practices, an invasive-species plan and verified boundaries before it acted. Expect the same questions here, along with truck access onto Route 40.

Sources: the town’s public hearing notice, dated October 22, 2026; our recording-based summary of the October 7 Planning Board meeting; the Planning Board’s October 7 agenda; our summary of the July 10, 2024 Planning Board hearing on the Briggs harvest. The applicants are named because they are on the public record of the application.