To the Editor:

I spoke at the Jan. 24 Guilderland Planning Board meeting on behalf of the Presidential Estate Homes Homeowners Association Board of Directors in opposition of the request to rezone the Hiawatha Trails Golf Course to provide for a seniors’ planned unit development.

In summary, the proposed structure is of a similar size to the hotel under construction at the entrance to Crossgates Mall, the parking spaces would be double in number to those that exist in the front of the Hamilton Square shopping plaza, and the mixed-use office building would be at least the size of the office space adjacent to Hewitt’s on Western Avenue. It would result in a grotesque transformation of the green-space golf course.

Tasteful development would not require a rezone rather than turning the area along Route 155 into an apartment village. The increase in traffic being directly across the street from the Farnsworth Middle School was cited along with off-shot traffic effects at the already congested junction of routes 20 and 155.

Regarding a recent rezone request at the junction of Carman and Old State roads, Councilman Paul Pastore stated that, as elected officials, the board members are stewards of the community. In that vein, Councilwoman Rosemary Centi pointed out the numerous requests for rezones in the community disregarding the zoning established in the master plan drafted for the benefit of the town at large.

We are witnessing spot rezone requests every time a non-complying proposal is put forth by a developer.  Her reasoning and comments are sound and thoughtful and recognize the stewardship responsibility as voiced by Councilman Pastore. If the position of town planner, vacated more than a year ago, were filled, the Hiawatha proposal would also have been sent to the conservation council for review. To date, it has not.

Supervisor Peter Barber states that we should not become an exclusive community. I hardly think that is the case. We already have at least 10 apartment complexes in the town with two more pending approval, a couple of mobile-home parks, and a large dedicated-to-senior-living facility.  That hardly makes us an exclusive community.  He further states the need for more senior housing.

Not only have we not seen supportive data for that point of view, indeed, as reported in The Enterprise on Jan. 25, the Mill Hollow development was originally approved for residents aged 55 and older, but the age restriction was later removed at the developer’s request due to lack of demand.  The demand will be further diluted by the plans for two additional senior complexes proposed a half-mile away from Hiawatha Trails at Mill Hill and another one off Johnston Road.

I was corrected by the planning board on my contention that the donation of half of the Hiawatha Trails parcel to the town for a park with limited access was a ploy to gain the board’s favor. In fact, it turns out that was a suggestion in prior discussions between the planning board and the developer.

Also revealed at the meeting was that discussion of single-family homes had also taken place. Since the first public airing of the Hiawatha Trails proposal was at the town board meeting of Jan. 7, it is obvious that many discussions on this proposal have taken place out of the public eye.

And, just who is the developer?  It is not local. The listing, since November 2016, for Hiawatha Land Development, LLC on the New York State Department of State website is an agent in Pomona, [Rockland County], New York.

The town board needs to adhere to its stewardship of the zoning plan and not grant spot, random rezones at the request of every developer and disrupt the already established areas of the town. We won’t be an exclusive community; we will be a patchwork community.

Perhaps we will cease to be a community at all, but will instead become a living and shopping appendage of the city of Albany.

While we will miss the open recreational green space of the golf course, and wish a buyer could be found to run it as such, development should be in harmony with the residential homes in Campus Club and Presidential Estates Homes keeping in mind that, whenever green space is lost, it is forever.

Frank Casey

Guilderland

Editor’s note: Frank Casey is president of the board of directors for the Presidential Estate Homes Homeowners Association.

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