GUILDERLAND — Angelo Serafini is looking to build 12 units of senior housing on West Old State Road. 

The housing for people 55 and older would consist of three buildings of four units each and would be located near the intersection of Carmen and West Old State roads, adjacent to an already-completed Serafini multi-unit senior development that was approved by the town in 2022. 

The units, located on a 1.37 acre site, would mirror the design of Serafini’s 2022-approved development, with the only difference being the addition of attached garages. 

During his presentation to the  Guilderland Planning Board on Jan. 8, Serafini sought to distinguish his proposed development from other senior-living projects in town. 

“I’ve got to be honest, with the clientele we have, they just want to have a nice, quiet place to live. Go for their walks, sit on their patio. It’s a different type of apartment living. It’s not busy,” Serafini told planning board members. “Let me put it this way: It’s not for everybody ... There’s no golf simulator here. No, our rents are very fair, and, you know, you can’t ask for anything more than that.”

Currently, a two-bedroom senior unit in the adjacent Serafini development is listed at $1,775 per month. At Guilderland’s swankier senior facilities — Hamilton Parc on State Farm Road, for example — the  starting low rent for a one-bedroom unit is $2,475 per month, with the highest-end two-room units going for nearly $4,000 a month. 

Once Serafini irons out a few issues raised by the board — like stormwater management and the installation of sidewalks — he will be back for final site-plan approval. 

New Mckownville firehouse

The planning board on Jan. 8 also got a look at the $9 million years-in-the-making rebuild of McKownville’s firehouse. The plan is to tear down the almost-six-decades-old station and replace it with one double in size, going from 6,000 to a little over 12,000 square feet. 

The McKownville fire department serves about 900 households, all of Stuyvesant Plaza and Executive Park, the Woodscape housing development, 45 percent of the University at Albany uptown campus, and a portion of Crossgates Mall.

Voters in the fire district overwhelmingly approved the new station in April, by a 109-to-28 margin. 

Fire apparatus is to be housed in a temporary building on town-owned property across the street from 1250 Western Ave. while the new station is built; office functions are to be run out of the department’s original Arcadia Avenue location. 

The new building was made necessary due to the growth in size and complexity of fire trucks and equipment in addition to the more stringent safety regulations for the firefighters themselves. The new firehouse is designed to accommodate it all. 

The new station is being funded through a 30-year bond.

Residents in the fire district will pay an additional 1.48 per $1,000 of assessed property value to cover the bond. 

The current fire tax rate in McKownville is $1.58 per $1,000 of assessed value, or about $375 per year for a median-assessed home, about $254,000, in McKownville. 

Similar to the Serafini proposal, the planning board looked for clarification on stormwater issues and wondered whether moving a utility pole would give volunteers responding to a call easier access to the site, both of which the department said it would look into.