To the Editor:

I am writing regarding the proposal to rezone the Hiawatha Trails golf course property for the construction of a 256-unit senior housing apartment complex and mixed-used office building. This project is an affront to the community and should be rejected outright.

The State Farm Road and Western Avenue corridor has already been over built by way of poor zoning decisions and includes sprawling apartment complexes, inadequate traffic congestion controls, and is grossly inadequate regarding pedestrian safety. The addition of this monstrosity would significantly exacerbate these existing problems.

Pedestrian safety and traffic control should be paramount in the minds of decision makers given the direct proximity to Farnsworth Middle School and the large population of children at both the school and the surrounding single-family communities and apartment complexes. The town should be looking for ways to improve road and pedestrian safety in this area, and not make the problem worse.

How many seniors do they think live in the Capital Region? This ruse has been repeated on multiple large-scale projects in the Capital Region.

Developers know senior housing is a better sales pitch than low-income housing. However, they also know that, once they start building, the town, the surrounding communities — everyone — is on the hook regarding the success (and failure) of the project.

Once up and in-process, developers will claim insufficient interest in the units for seniors and financial calamity if the town doesn’t rezone to allow them to market to anyone. The town will cave because it doesn’t have the skills or resources to manage or liquidate a property of this complexity in the event the owner goes belly-up.  Be advised — once the building is up, it is up for good and, as a resident, you are on the hook. This won’t be senior housing.

Do we want more apartment complexes? While I hold in high esteem our neighbors in the complexes, the complexes are a gamble with the community’s chips. Upkeep, poor management, bad economy — any of these events could change these complexes from minimally acceptable attributes to eyesores, safety issues, and neighborhood degradation.

Does this area of the town need to take on more of this type of risk? These complexes also tend to become communities inside communities, lack integration, and become chiefdoms of their building-management teams. This is in stark contrast to the risk profile of single-family housing that quickly acclimates and integrates with existing communities, and is broken down into small enough pieces to be manageable if individual owners run amiss.

Lastly, let’s be honest: It is a big, ugly overbuild, four beastly stories sticking up into the sky, staring down on surrounding single-family communities and our middle school. It devalues the middle school, it devalues our homes, impedes on the integrity of the community, and strips beauty from the landscape — a fundamental and valuable characteristic of this part of the town.

On April 17, the town will vote on this very significant and impactful project. Yet had our neighborhood-association leaders not been attuned to the vague disclosures on the town board website, I certainly wouldn’t have known about it. I think The Enterprise, as a town-specific paper, should ensure this issue is hashed out publicly and as widespread as possible going into April 17.

Citizens should have greater transparency about the project, its details, and the ways they can voice their concern on the proposal. I would also call upon The Enterprise to stand, analyze, and take a position on this proposal itself. It would assist community members in understanding the risks associated with this project, and the impact it will have on their daily lives.

Kevin Ehatt

Guilderland

Editor’s note: See related story.