ALTAMONT — “This is the beginning of a conversation,” Mayor James Gaughan told the score of village residents who had turned out on April 7 to comment on a zoning-change request that would allow Stewart’s to expand.

The request came from Peter Baumann, owner of 107-109 Helderberg Ave.  He wants to redraw the lines of Altamont’s central business district to include his parcel, which is now just outside the district and is zoned residential.  Baumann, who lives in Albany, said at the meeting that he wants to sell his property — currently rented out to two families — to Stewart’s.

According to the town tax rolls, Baumann’s property is assessed at $120,000 with a full market value of $133,350. The convenience store and gas station, located at 1001 Altamont Boulevard, is right next to his parcel.

Although the board could have decided at its April 7 meeting not to entertain the request, it decided instead to consider a law at its next meeting that would begin the process of exploring the zoning change.

Laying out the options

Gaughan indicated that he wanted to have Trustee Dean Whalen and Village Attorney Jason L. Shaw introduce the matter, “to lay this out very carefully, to have everybody understand what we’re required to do or not to do.”

Whalen said that the first step was for the board to decide if it even wanted to consider the request. If it did, it could propose a resolution and schedule a public hearing, if it felt that it already had enough information. Alternatively, it could request more information from the village’s planning board or zoning board of appeals, or from the applicant.

Shaw, a partner with the village’s designated attorneys, Whiteman, Osterman and Hanna, noted that the decision whether to change the zoning map was discretionary on the part of the board, meaning that the board was free to make a decision without any obligation to explain its reasons.

“You can deny it for no reason, or you can give a reason; it doesn’t matter,” Shaw said. “If the board decides not to do it, that’s the end of it; there’s not going to be any legal challenge or anything like that.”

Shaw said that the request wasn’t being made “in the abstract.” He noted that Stewart’s had come to a planning board meeting several months earlier to make some modifications to its property and the Stewart’s building, and that it had been “obvious from the application that they had some problems, in terms of the physical site, in doing what they wanted to do. It was just too limited for them.”

Shaw also noted that, even if the board should decide to approve the request for the zoning change, having a gas station or convenience store on the property would still require a special-use permit from the planning board. 

Village code, based on its comprehensive plan, says residential districts are “to provide for single-family homes, two-family homes, or apartments and cultural facilities such as churches, schools, philanthropic uses, public recreational uses, and other compatible uses consistent with the traditional neighborhood character of the Village of Altamont.”

The central business district, the code says, “is to promote the maintenance, preservation, restoration, and economic use of the existing buildings and other historic structures in the center of the Village and to ensure that any infill or extension of the Village center is done in the same pattern....”

Baumann’s view

Baumann said that Stewart’s was representing him in “all these motions going forth, because I’m a novice in this area.”

Gaughan asked Baumann why he was making the request. Baumann answered that he had originally bought the property assuming that Stewart’s would buy it from him someday.

“But in 2009, I found out, unbeknownst to me, the zoning had been changed. It was a commercially zoned piece of property. And I was not aware that there was a zoning change going on in 2009; otherwise I would have objected to it.”

According to the Guilderland Assessor’s Office, Baumann bought the property in 2005 from Daniel and Michelle Teal and Frederick Day for $120,000. At the time, the property was zoned “local business.”

Gaughan said then that the village had done a year-and-a-half-long comprehensive zoning change from 2007 to 2008 that involved many public hearings. At the end of that process, it was decided to “encase the central business district.” To Baumann he said, “Sorry you weren’t in on the discussion. But we went through many, many public sessions, and the result was that that property was changed.”

The law does not require the village to contact individual property owners regarding zoning changes. The village’s current zoning code requires only publication of a notice of a public hearing for a zoning change. This is the same requirement set out in New York State Law.

Gaughan told The Enterprise recently that property owners were not individually sent notices about public hearings on the proposed zoning law.

“Any person who was attentive to the newspapers around the time of the consideration and adoption of the new zoning would have been on notice about the zoning change that could have affected his or her property,” he said. “It would not be feasible nor cost effective to send individual notices to everyone since ‘all’ property owners were technically affected by the proposed zoning and sub-division changes.”

Shaw told The Enterprise simply, “Even if for some reason he [Baumann] didn’t know about it, that’s not a defense.”

Stewart’s plans

Jennifer Howard said that she was filling in for Chuck Howard of Stewart’s, who had been to the planning board earlier with proposed changes to the existing Stewart’s building.

“It’s my understanding,” she said, “that, when he did that, nobody was really happy with the end result of the building. It really didn’t look any better.” She said that, since Stewart’s is working within the confines of an existing building, “We really do have limited aesthetics we can do to the exterior.”

So when the company heard about Baumann’s building, she said, it began concentrating on the idea of expanding, rather than simply renovating the existing building. If the rezoning request is approved, she said, the result would be a “similar building as in the Guilderland one we did.” Another issue for Stewart’s is the availability of sufficient parking, she said.

Stewart’s and Baumann have entered into an option agreement, and have an agreed-upon purchase price.

Howard added that the company is looking to improve its stores in general, doing about 12 to 14 rebuilds a year, buying adjacent parcels in an effort to enlarge stores and parking lots and make stores more aesthetically pleasing.

Residents speak

The first village resident to give her views was Carol Rothenberg, who has lived at 111 Helderberg Avenue since 1979. She said that she had come to the meeting to listen, gather information, and voice her concerns over the possible rezoning of “our residential neighborhood” as well as to say that “there is opposition” within her neighborhood “and other areas.” (See Rothenberg’s letter to the editor.)

A resident who lives at 109 Park Street, Stewart Linendoll, said that he does not live adjacent to Stewart’s, but that he thinks losing a property that allows residents to enjoy Altamont would be a shame. He said it is a multi-family house now and that he would prefer to see it occupied by families rather than turned into a parking lot.

He enjoys a small Stewart’s, Linendoll said, and thinks that a “quaint” Stewart’s might be best for a quaint village. He added that he thinks neighbors of 109 Helderberg Ave. should have been notified, “just as if it were to come before the zoning board or a planning board.” He said that he would hate to see the district expand and take private property.

Gaughan responded that before there is any public hearing, “we do intend to make sure that everybody’s notified,” but that he was glad to have this chance to hear residents’ thoughts in this initial discussion. 

Michael McNeany of 104 Severson Ave. said that he has two small children and that Stewart’s is right around the corner; he can see the store from his front yard. He said that he does not support the change.

McNeany said that he cannot see any reason to expand the commercial area of Altamont, and that he likes it the way it is. He frequents Stewart’s three or four times a week and is happy with the building that is there now.

Following the meeting, McNeany told The Enterprise that it concerns him that it took a year to change the property from commercial to residential, but that “they’re trying to steamroller it back the other way.” He added that making this property part of the central business district would involve “chopping off the bottom of the Helderberg escarpment as it comes into Altamont.”

Marijo Dougherty, village archivist, commented at the meeting that the Stewart’s currently sits on a historic site that has a historic marker. She said that she hopes Stewart’s will look into the archives to learn some of the things that have happened on the site and that, if this change does go forward, they will place the historic marker somewhere on the property.

Kate Provencher of 7 Thatcher Drive said that, as someone who sits on the zoning board and also served on the committee that created the comprehensive plan, she is certain that there was “lots of opportunity for public input and what people wanted in the village.”

She noted that a year and a half ago the village had a change that went through this same process of making a request to the village board. The board voted in 2012 to expand the zoning code on allowable land use on Maple Avenue to include medical/dental/optical, to allow Dennis Cyr’s Mountainview Prosthetics to move into 124 Maple Ave.

Provencher stated that she thought the current request is actually a bigger change than the previous one, because it’s a change from residential to central business district. “If that can happen, that could happen to any of our properties,” she said.

Fred Ziemann quipped that he and his family are relative newcomers to Altamont, having lived at 119 Helderberg Ave. “for about 36 years now.”  He said that over that time there have been a lot of changes, with many of the buildings being redone beautifully. He does not believe that the expansion of Stewart’s “would fit into that at all.”

Already, he said, residents can’t get out of their driveways when there’s a big funeral at Fredendall Funeral Home across the street from Stewart’s, and a larger store would only exacerbate that problem. He also said that he believes an expanded Stewart’s would drive property values down.

Next steps

Shaw reiterated that, prior to any public hearing, the village board would need to conduct a State Environmental Quality Review. If something comes up in the public hearing, he said, the environmental review could always be reopened. There’s no timeline or deadline, he said.

The other next step, Shaw said, would be to have a proposed local law drawn up to reflect that the Baumann property would be included within the central business district.

Trustee Christine Marshall then asked if the planning board had actually recommended that the village board consider changing the zoning of the property. Shaw said that it had.

This caused some confusion about the role of the planning board in this process. When Marshall and Provencher questioned this further, Timothy Wilford, the new planning board chairman, stood up to offer clarification.

Wilford said that there had been three scheduled appearances of Stewart’s at planning board meetings so far. The first had not materialized, he said. In the second, Stewart’s had presented detailed plans for changes to the existing building, but these had not been to anyone’s satisfaction, including the company’s own. At the third meeting, Stewart’s had presented a “brief overview of what the [expanded] Stewart’s would look like,” and the planning board had said that the store needed to go to the village board to discuss the matter, and not to the planning board.

“We have not gone through that plan with a fine comb or anything,” Wilford said. He said that the planning board has never seen any detailed or final plan.

Provencher said that she wanted to underline that there has not been any recommendation from the planning board that the village accept the zoning-change request. She warned against setting a precedent that would start the central business district creeping outward.

Shaw said that the required environmental review would need to take into consideration concerns about zoning creep and any other implications of a change.

Trustee Kerry Dineen said that it was great hearing from people in the neighborhood because “what they have to say does matter, on this or any other situation.” She noted that in the past — “as somebody put it, a year and a half ago” — the board had considered requests to change the zoning of individual properties.

Those requests, too, differed from the comprehensive plan that was already completed. And so, in the interest of fairness, she said, the board should make the local law, do the SEQR, and hold the public hearing on this matter. She noted that with that process would come notification of area residents.

Gaughan said that he understood residents’ concerns, but that he thought that the board needed more information, and more public input.

Shaw said that the next step would be to write up a local law so that there is something concrete to discuss. “It doesn’t mean that adoption is imminent,” he said.

Shaw said that he could draft a proposed local law to be considered by the board at the next regular meeting. He said that before that meeting he would also let the board know the steps that it needs to take to conduct the environmental review. 

Shaw added that he would check the village’s escrow law. He said that this process could involve engineering fees or legal counsel fees for the village, and that the proposed change, if accepted, would require an actual physical change to the village zoning map that someone would need to do. He suggested that the proponent of the change should be the one to bear all of those costs, not the village.