Grand Island conservation board advises against developing area of Ecologically Important District near Woods Creek

The Grand Island Conservation Advisory Board voted Dec. 19 to draft a formal advisement to the Town Board recommending that parts of a proposed housing development that fall inside an Ecologically Important District (EED) along Woods Creek not be developed, citing flood-control risks and significant ecological values.

Board members said the recommendation followed a Dec. 7 site walk of two parcels — a 22.8-acre northern lot and a 12.9-acre southern lot — where members observed dense invasive buckthorn at the parcel edges but mature, old-growth oaks and a ravine channeling feeder streams into Woods Creek farther inland. The chair read the board’s summary of findings into the record and moved that the board "draft a letter of advisement that ... the part of the development that intrudes into the EED not be developed" because of flood-control concerns, steep elevation changes, adjoining…